Bandwidth vs Storage in Web Hosting. What's the Difference?

Choosing a hosting plan can be overwhelming when you don’t understand what the features are or what they do. By learning what web hosts mean when they talk about bandwidth and storage capacity, you’ll be better equipped to choose the right hosting plan for your needs.

The simplest difference between the two is that bandwidth refers to how much data a site can transmit between the server and its users, while storage refers to how much space the site takes up on the server.

What Is Bandwidth?

Using an analogy – bandwidth is a highway and your data is the cars moving along it. A bigger bandwidth plan means more lanes for cars to travel on, so more information can be shared at the same time, including to multiple users accessing your site simultaneously.

High-bandwidth activities occur when a large amount of data needs to be transmitted – such as uploading or downloading large files, playing videos, or experiencing a spike in traffic. If your highway doesn’t have enough lanes to support these activities, it can become overloaded and slow everything down, cause errors, or even grind to a halt.

Bandwidth can also be described as a plan’s download capacity.

What Is Storage?

In comparison, your storage is like a filing cabinet. The size of the filing cabinet represents the amount of storage you have, and the files inside it is the content of your website – and your emails if they’re hosted on the same plan. Some files are larger and take up more space, while others are smaller but more numerous.

Examples of what takes up storage:

• Images
• Videos
• Audio Files
• Databases
  • Contact forms
  • Membership systems
  • eCommerce websites
• CMS files and plugins
• Emails and their attachments

The amount of storage you need depends on the size of your site and what you need it to do. For example, an eCommerce business will need more storage for its product database than a small business with a simple 10-page information site.

If you use up all your storage, your filing cabinet is full and can’t fit anything else. This means you won’t be able to add new content to your site, contact forms that store data may stop working, and your emails will stop functioning if they share the same hosting.

Storage can also be described as a plan’s disk capacity.

Key Differences Between the Two

Bandwidth

• How much data can be accessed at one time.
• Is a highway with moving cars.
• Generally needs to be higher than storage to allow for traffic.

Storage

• How much data can be stored on the server.
• Is a filing cabinet with files.

Similarities Between the Two

• Both can cause your website or emails to stop working if you reach your plan’s limit.
• Both play an important role in your hosting plan.

*****

Bandwidth and storage both play vital roles in your web hosting and understanding what each of them does helps you choose the right hosting plan. The amount of storage and bandwidth you need depends on the type of site you have, how much traffic you receive, and whether email is included in your hosting. Reaching the limit of your plan for either resource causes issues with your website – and your email if it’s included – and can have knock-on effects for your business.

Our policy is to alert you when your storage reaches 80% and 90% capacity, and to upgrade your hosting plan when you reach 95% capacity to minimise disruption to your business.

Contact us today if you have any questions about your hosting or want to know whether you’re on the right plan for your needs.

Talk to us today