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Hostgator web hosting offers unlimited storage to their subscribers. But what does it mean by unlimited? This has caused the number of files that can be stored become one of the most frequent asked questions. What is the exact storage size of Hostgator?
Well, with the unlimited storage and bandwidth features offered, Hostgator is in fact one of the hosting companies that oversell. Oversell here means promising something that is impossible to achieve. This is said so because it is impossible to have unlimited storage in web hosting. Web hosting is just like a piece of space in your computer hard disk, imagine I am downloading the whole internet into the hard disk. Can that be possible?
Overselling happens for the fact that most of the subscribers will not consume all the allocated storage in their hosting account. Probably one subscriber will only use up maximum 25% of the space and leave the remaining 75% unattended. Apparently web hosting company sees that as a waste of resources so they have come up with unlimited storage plan as their marketing strategy. They make it possible for subscribers to store more though knowing that subscribers will not use up all the space, yet potential subscribers are attracted to such offers. So it is a win-win situation.
You may wonder what if somebody really takes up storage that is more than expected. And the answer is possible account suspensions for overuse.
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You may get annoyed for that as it sounds catchy with the unlimited storage now. However worry not as according to the Term of Service by Hostgator, in fact they are measuring the web hosting usage by another mean. Interesting enough Inodes (Index Nodes) is introduced. Whenever a file is created or uploaded into the hosting account, one Inodes is consumed. Inodes contents the admin information of a file. A total of 250,000 Inodes are allocated for one shared hosting account. Thus Hostgator is sort of monitoring the usage by Inodes. For subscribers, there is a clear Inodes indicator at the left hand side sidebar inside the cPanel where you can see your usage.
Does it mean 250,000 Inodes are the limit of the storage? Only 250,000 files can be created? The answer is yes. Any exceed of this amount may result in account suspension. So perhaps the unlimited storage by Hostgator means a subscriber can store files with as huge as possible file size however it is kind of limited to 250,000 files in an account.
However I think that is fair because Hostgator has spoken the truth beforehand. After all subscribers are paying a reasonable price for such service. Also, I wonder how many people are using up to 250,000 files storage (My account only consumes around 6,000 Inodes with 5 independent websites – 4 add on domains).
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Hi there,
Thanks for the post. The main reason (and affect) of inode limits is us backing up files and accounts. If a user is legitimately using more than 250,000 inodes and it isn’t due to something like a catchcall being left unattended, etc., we’ll work with that customer and see what can be done.
Honesty and integrity are central to HostGator’s value proposition and company culture. As a result, we make it a point to honor our commitments and promises and will do whatever we can to ensure a customer gets exactly what they paid for and nothing less.
Hopefully this explanation helps. If you ever have any questions or concerns about HostGator, don’t hesitate to let us know.
[...] Further readings on Hostgator’s file storage limitation, check out this blogpost at Review Hostgator. [...]
[...] Further readings on Hostgator’s file storage limitation, check out this blogpost at Review Hostgator. [...]
I’m not sure if this is a recent change, but the HostGator TOS (http://www.hostgator.com/tos.shtml) states:
“The use of more than 50,000 inodes on any shared account may potentially result in suspension.”
Hello Brent. The 50,000 inodes have already been stated there for some time.
It’s true that it’s stated so but it’s stated there “may potentially” only. Also it is worth noting that all usage after 50,000 inodes will be removed from their auto backup system to avoid over usage.
So I believe Hostgator take the 50,000 inodes as a benchmarking to remind users to put an eye on the files that consume spaces. Because according to them, often time the files that consume up spaces are those junk and spam mail that reach in those unattended mail box. I guess their act is to encourage users to check from time to time to clean up unnecessary files to avoid traffic jam among users.
Of course, what a great site and informative posts, I will add backlink – bookmark this site? Regards, Reader.
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Really cool stuff la, can I copy your article for my blog?
@John,
Thank you. You may copy the article with a link back to this page or website.