Throttling Back My FTP Bandwidth

[MyNameIsMrSargenti]

To: Matt Heaton / President Hostmonster.com
From Vincent Sargenti
Re: Throttling Back My FTP Bandwidth

When I chose to open an account with Hostmonster, it was because I was having problems with the performance of my former host and Hostmonster touted the superior performance of their Xeon Servers. Normally, I would get an FTP downstream rate of 382Kb/s+ and an upload rate of equal to that of my cable provider.

Recently, I have recognized that the download speed of my FTP has been throttled back to 120Kb/s.

If this is the new speed limit of hostmonster, then I was greatly mistaken in opening a two year account here and I am going to be extremely disappointed.

Please tell me I wasn't mistaken. Please tell me that my FTP download rate has not been thwarted to 120k. Please tell me I was not not mislead to believe that hostmonster offered superior performance.

Vincent Sargenti

www.sargenti.org

[jayl]

Has anyone answered this yet? What is the available FTP bandwidth? (Or, what is the maximum and minimum typical bandwidth.)

[Rub3X]

I've called them about this issue before, and they told me that FTP was capped at a certain speed while HTTP was "unlimited".

[amol]

I am thinking of opening an account with hostmonser so am interested in the official answer to this question..(I wont open an account if ftp is capped)

[virtualahmad]

interesting how hm support tech's respond to many posts except this one... i just did a site backup from the control panel, and the download was fluctuating between 5 - 180 ... seemed to be an HTTP download and not FTP... not very promising either way.

[Centurion]

I decided to run an FTP test. I have a (10 Mb) fractional DS-3 connection from work. I uploaded a 100MB file at 9:00PM CST.

When I logged into my site via FTP it did state:

230-Your bandwidth usage is restricted

Which I took as a bad sign. However below I pasted the results of my upload.

226 115.259 seconds (measured here), 0.91 Mbytes per second
ftp: 109389293 bytes sent in 115.22Seconds 949.39Kbytes/sec.

Seems ok to me. :)

[E.M.P.]

Has anyone spoken to a online chat support person for HM about this issue ?Instead of just chatting here.

I agree doing you own test might be in order.. The test above looks good to me too..

[jayl]

Well... nice to see that the upload speed at night is okay (according to your test). Did you test the download speed of http vs. ftp?
If an http download gets interrupted, it must be restarted, whereas an ftp download can be resumed. As such, using http for download on any file of reasonable size doesn't seem like a great idea (unless you have the patience of a saint)!

[E.M.P.]

Well... nice to see that the upload speed at night is okay (according to your test). Did you test the download speed of http vs. ftp?
If an http download gets interrupted, it must be restarted, whereas an ftp download can be resumed. As such, using http for download on any file of reasonable size doesn't seem like a great idea (unless you have the patience of a saint)!


I have uploaded 50 MP3 files at 3.5 meg each at one time and it did not seem to have to wait a huge amount of time.. As far as downloading via FTP and Http no issues there either... Music downloads with not choppy sound and dam good speed too.

I am not quite sure what you are getting at in this topic. You have to remember that Host Monster is a sharred hosting company and has to put on caps for the benefit of all the people that they are hosting. You are going to find that almost all hosting companies have caps and limits.

If you want to have total control over things then you need a dedicated server or your own private server there is no getting around this and your search is going to be huge trying to find a shared host company with your expectations for download/upload speed.

:) :) :)

[dwdallam.com]

I installed an image gallery and wanted to download it to my client using FTP. After more than 30 minutes, it had only downloaded 20 MEGS. This is not alot faster than a dialup connection, maybe something like 70kbps?

[virtualahmad]

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
ISP: Rogers
Connection: 54Mbps (wireless G)
uploaded 52.4MB file via FTP
time: approximately 7:45-8:15am EST November 20, 2006
(numbers as per NetMeter application)
-------------------------------------------

FTP peak upload: 66.6 KB/s
FTP average upload: 46.1 KB/s

FTP peak download: 171.9 KB/s
FTP average download: 59.3 KB/s

HTTP peak download: 171.8 KB/s
HTTP average download: 153.2 KB/s

Synopsis:
- Upload restricted by ISP... inaccurate test
- Download is unimpressive either way... worse via FTP, but not significantly better via HTTP. Going to sites hosted using Akamai, easily average 300 - 400 KB/s using the same location, connection etc.

I'm glad I don't have huge files to serve to customers... but VERY disappointed in the numbers yielded above.

[tsnyder91]

My Internet Connections is a 10megbit Down and 1 megbit(I usually get a bit more than this) up connection via Cox Cable. Your results are really interesting considering i can download an 23 megabyte mp3 i have on my site at an avg xfer rate of about 600-900 k. Upload via HTTP I use my full 1meg upload speed. Sometimes I hit about 138K upload which is 1.1megbits up.

Using 54mbps wireless really is not accurate. What is the Broadband speed you subscribe to? That will be your limit. It looks like you are limited to about 1.5-2meg download and 512k upload. I'm curious as to what your speeds are on other websites like http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest or http://www.internetfrog.net It is possible that the server you are on is loaded up pretty good.


HTTP speeds are perfectly fine on my end. FTP speeds I get capped around 122k Download and 90 for upload, so I usually upload via HTTP anyways. Installing PHP modules via FTP goes fast enough at 90 some for smaller files anyways.

Summary

Download Speeds
4.8-7.2 megbit via HTTP(600-900kbyte)
0.9megbit via FTP (122kbyte)

Upload Speeds
.9-1.1 megbit via HTTP (122-138kbyte)
.72 megbit via FTP (90kbyte)

[dwdallam.com]

That FTP speed is rediculous, especially for upload. No wonder it take me all day to upload my clients websites after I've worked on them--full upload. FTP is suppose to be more efficient at transfering files than http becsaue of it's interface, and for that reason web designers, IT professionals, etc., use FTP. For that reason I can't imagine why HM decided to cripple FTP speeds--except that they had too many people streaming webcams and audio and using HM as a FTP file trading system. So I guess they decided that a dial up modem speed would discourage using FTP as a download option. But that really doesn't make much sense either, since one could pass word protect an HTP page and htaccess it so it does a list. Then just grab them all at once. I don't know. I don't get it.

[tsnyder91]

dial up speeds??? wow, I'd encourage you to go back to dial up and see what 5kbyte or less xtransfer is really like. Thats interesting that you say FTP is more effecient. I agree at a protocal level, but realistically for somet time now if I have the option of HTTP or FTP for a download, HTTP gets my vote as it is usually faster by a good margin. So I guess what I'm hearing is that you'd rather have limits on HTTP and unbridled FTP? There has to be limits regardless. Especially on a shared host. They are different on every host. The ones that are uncapped speeds on FTP and HTTP that I found did not allow for media files, Period. I'm fine with what Hostmonster's policy's are. If it takes a bit longer to upload a site, the I'll set it to go and walk away. Not the end of the world.

[E.M.P.]

dial up speeds??? wow, I'd encourage you to go back to dial up and see what 5kbyte or less xtransfer is really like. Thats interesting that you say FTP is more effecient. I agree at a protocal level, but realistically for somet time now if I have the option of HTTP or FTP for a download, HTTP gets my vote as it is usually faster by a good margin. So I guess what I'm hearing is that you'd rather have limits on HTTP and unbridled FTP? There has to be limits regardless. Especially on a shared host. They are different on every host. The ones that are uncapped speeds on FTP and HTTP that I found did not allow for media files, Period. I'm fine with what Hostmonster's policy's are. If it takes a bit longer to upload a site, the I'll set it to go and walk away. Not the end of the world.

Yes I have to agree with you. I am very happy with my upload and download speeds.. I to have no problems..

[dwdallam.com]

FTP is years a head of web interface when comparing options and ease of use--that is, using software. Hell, I think I can set my FTP program up to use http protocals. Then my ftp interface would actually be http, and I'd get full speeds. What I meant, if I wasn't clear, is that no one I know who administers a server/web from a professional level uses http to upload files, keep track of sychronization, and other designers/programmers working on the same project. But if it took them 35 minutes to upload 25 MB, you do the math. I think at a true 56kbps it takes a little over 3 minutes to download a 1MB file--if I remember correctly. So yeah, it's about three times as fast as dialup on the upload. But your point is well taken. On a "shared" system, there has to be some give and take.

dial up speeds??? wow, I'd encourage you to go back to dial up and see what 5kbyte or less xtransfer is really like. Thats interesting that you say FTP is more effecient. I agree at a protocal level, but realistically for somet time now if I have the option of HTTP or FTP for a download, HTTP gets my vote as it is usually faster by a good margin. So I guess what I'm hearing is that you'd rather have limits on HTTP and unbridled FTP? There has to be limits regardless. Especially on a shared host. They are different on every host. The ones that are uncapped speeds on FTP and HTTP that I found did not allow for media files, Period. I'm fine with what Hostmonster's policy's are. If it takes a bit longer to upload a site, the I'll set it to go and walk away. Not the end of the world.

[Gomo]

I Just signed up with HM, And im amazed how cheap it is, But grealy disapointed in the capped speeds downloads are via FTP, it's @ 29kb/sec! While with a HTTP download i get around 780kb/sec! Is there any reason for this I wasnt informed when i signed up of this ;(

[serversn]

Urm guys, it would be more interesting for you to attempt to download multiple files via multiple connections, in that way, you'll see REALLY what your limits are because based on what HM was telling me, they have an upload limit of 2.4 megabits (so I'm wondering if a few people that are on T1 or higher attempt to download a file, if they will either 1. Use up the bandwidth or 2. be throttled down to ridiculous speeds in accomodation of the measly 2.4 megabits sever up).... just some food for thought

[dwdallam.com]

I haven't tried any tests, but I think my initial download speed was hampered by small files. The server takes some time to switch directories and file names, which slows down the speed drastically. I can upload a large file and then download it to see what speed I get.

OK I'm getting my maximum upload speeds using WSFTP and a 10MB file. That's a little over 600 kbits/s with an average of about 575 kbits/s. So upload is screaming.

Download on same file is: 2.2 Mbits/s which is SCREAMING.

I'm getting full up and download speeds.

Case closed. Thier FTP pipe takes all I can give it.

EXCELLENT SERVICE.

[serversn]

lol that's just you alone, what about when other users visit your site to download something....? I think that's when the true throttling back begins if I haven't mistaken

[dwdallam.com]

I think the thread was started with a concern for FTP speeds on the download side, not http. And why would my speeds be any different than anyone's with the same package?

Perhaps you mean how much bandwidth each account can use simultaneously? To that question I have no answer. You could do a test by opening multiple connectoins and begin downloading large files until you get a drop in speed.

I still think the thread was started as a concern with ftp download speeds.

[Aaron]

There are times when the connection speed is really good. I noticed it to be around 6am to 9am at my time, which is GMT + 0800.

You can try working my recommended times to your time zone and see if you get better speeds. It's a general problem with shared hosting I suppose. Everything is shared.