[cobalt-users] A Word About Cobaltracks.Com and Bandwidth Usage

["lists" <lists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

I have not read the cobalt-users board in quite some time and was surprised
to see someone considering cobaltracks.com as a webhost.

As a webhost or dedicated server company, providing transfer is more than
just stating a figure to make as sale.  As you note, cobaltracks.com
includes 51 GB with their basic plan.  Many webhosts and dedicated companies
are quick to quote huge bandwidth figures without the network to back it up.

To provide transfer equal to the amount quoted normally requires three to
four times the minimum kbps per month.  Why, because the internet has prime
and non prime times.  In fact, your usage goes up and down like a
rollercoaster all day long, with a huge drop between 2 AM and 6 AM.

During those peak times your bandwidth tops out and flat lines at the
bandwidth limitation set by your dedicated server company or webhost.
During those non peak times your server does not fully utilize the allocated
bandwidth given to your server causing under utilization of the bandwidth.

In a given month if you fully utilized your bandwidth during every single
second of the month, you would still require a connection of at least 163.2
kbps to transfer 51 GB in any given month (51 * 3.2 kbps).  This is equal to
20.4 KB/s (163.2/8).  However, most have tested cobaltracks.com to be lower
than this figure and even current users have mentioned the cobaltracks.com
servers are slow.

So lets see, three times the min bandwidth of 163.2 kbps is 489.6 kbps, but
cobaltracks does not even provide the min bandwidth, so what are you really
getting?  Sounds like another classic example of a webhost/dedicated server
company sales gimmick where you get less than you expected.

Before you choose a company do more than just look at the sales sheet.  Do
the math, test the network, compare, and make sure you are able to get what
they claim they provide!  Do not believe everything you read or hear or you
will find yourself getting less than you bargained.

I am not 100% unbiased as I had previously leased an RAQ3 as an RAQ4 from
cobaltracks.com, however, math does not lie.  Since moving from
cobaltracks.com I started my own little network and I currently have my own
RAQ4 webhosting servers transferring on average 450 to 500 GB of data per
month.  When you transfer that much data to a single web server you learn a
lot about the quality of a network and the bandwidth requirements to
transfer just one GB of data.

Thank you,

Michael T. Ross
www.lightspeedservers.net