Hi, I thought I'd ask and see if anyone could suggest what type of web hosting would be good for me right now.
(Until now I've been using free hosts)

It's a personal site, mainly for downloading (not streaming) videos. The videos are all zipped, and are usually around 15mb. I'm guessing that I will be needing at least 500mb of space, and a decent amount of bandwidth (I'm not exactly sure what counts as a 'good' amount)
And it would be really helpful if a free domain name was included (though not essential)

Something less than £5 per month would be great...

I would appreciate any advice.

Hello,

Definitely you need a good amount of bandwidth for downloading files from your site. I would say you need at least 10X of your diskspace. If you have 500 MB diskspace, 5000 MB bandwidth/mo will do. Then, you can always add more if you need extras.

As far as free domain in the hosting package, I would least recommend it. I would rather have my own control of my domain name, just in case when you want to change hosting in the future, you can simply change new nameservers of your new hosting provider.

Hope this helps

Yeah thanks that was helpful

I'm still having trouble deciding on one though

What would you guys think of these?
http://www.ukhost4u.com/basic.html
http://easycgi.com/basic_hosting.html

Their prices look nice, if they are okay with the uptime as well - congratulations
you have found your new host(s)
Check if they have money back guarantee. Usually the money back guarantee is 30 days, especially when the plans are paid on annual basis.
Good Luck !

I checked the Terms of Service of the first link and it seems to say that a refund can only be made within the first 24 hours...

Heh, still looking...
Could someone please do me a favour? Take a look at this host and tell me what you think of it?

http://buckwebhost.com/4buckplan.php

Buck host looks not very well suited for video download.

I'm in a similar position - I'm making a website ultimately for video downloads. Have you found a host? Are you tracking your bandwith? Let me know if you've found success with a host...

thanks

The company I work for may be useful.
I know we have nebulous caps for bandwidth. I see clients do some crazy things with bandwidth and storage.
Don't ask about how much bandwidth you get or they will keep an eye on you.

Streaming is not a strength here although they offer a streaming server account, but charge arm and leg for it.

this is the place: web hosting - internetconnection.net - don't use the windows hosting. in fact, don't do it on any host. ever.

Yo; Is this self promotion? I hope not. I'm not paid crap for writing this or accounts incoming etc. I'm a developer/design whelp. but.. whatever.

Well, file downloads is something most web hosts will terminate an account for. I would suggest checking in your prospects Terms of Service, Terms and Conditions, and Acceptable Use Policy for any stipulations for file downloads.

If your looking for quality hosting, I would suggest you look for plan in the range of 5-7$ taking in consideration you need 500mb of disk space and 5gb of traffic.

Your site sounds exactly like mine. I host tons of large, zipped, downloadable videos and decided to go with Powweb because of their high limits, great price, and reliability. They offer 5GB of storage and 10GB bandwidth/DAY, for $7.77 a month. You can see my site in action at www.afiseries.com.