I have a Linode 512 that I want to use for a prospective client's project. In my proposal, I mentioned the 16 GB transfer limit and he says he wants "unlimited" transfer. I checked online and it seems that there are hosting companies that claim "unlimited" but it's just a sales ploy. How can I communicate this to the client?

Note that's 16Gb of data storage on a 512; the transfer is 200Gb per month. Additional transfer is $10 per 100Gb, monthly.

Many "unlimited transfer" services actually provide this by providing slower service; eg 100Gb of transfer at 100Mbit/s or umlimited transfer at 5Mbit/s. The slower speeds will make your site slower for the average user, especially if you're doing a lot of downloads 'cos the web browsing will compete with the file transfers for the same bandwidth.

FWIW, speed tests at linode show linode hosts have a very fast internet connection. eg I was able to download http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test at around 380mbit/s (it took 47seconds to download a 100Mbyte file).

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Rgds
Stephen
(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

The only vps's that are unlimited charge based on your pipe speed (and not a strict quote), but I doubt many of them actually guarantee the bandwidth - you are usually sharing with other machines.

The others aren't vps offerings, and I hear many suspicious "violation of fair usage" happening when, well, it's offered as unlimited. It's just a convenient way to say "for normal usage, you won't pay more."

Maybe though, you could tell him about the entire 200gb of transfer that comes with the plan, rather than the 16 you wrote in the post?

That math doesn't seem right at all...

If you download at 380 Mbit/s it would take about 2 seconds to download 100 MByte, not 47 seconds.

You're right; I mis-read my own file which said

   My linode at fremont: 47.42 MB/s => 379.36 Mbit/s ping av= 1.609ms

I didn't record the time, just the speed. Silly me!

FWIW, a test just now was even faster

linode.pts/0% wget -O/dev/null http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
--16:51:55--  http://cachefly.cachefly.net/100mb.test
           => `/dev/null'
Resolving cachefly.cachefly.net... 205.234.175.175
Connecting to cachefly.cachefly.net|205.234.175.175|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 104,857,600 (100M) [application/octet-stream]

100%[====================================>] 104,857,600   62.58M/s

16:51:57 (62.52 MB/s) - `/dev/null' saved [104857600/104857600]

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Rgds

Stephen

(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

The limit is 200GB, not 16GB.

Give the client "unlimited transfer". If the client ever actually reaches 200GB/mo, tell him he needs a bigger server because his website is so popular, and bill him for an upgrade to 768. Make sure you write down "hardware upgrade" rather than "excess bandwidth" on the bill. After all, you'll need an unlimited amount of CPU and RAM to serve an unlimited number of web pages, but the client only purchased unlimited transfer, not unlimited CPU and RAM.

Of course, this works best if the site uses a heavyweight web application such as WordPress, which won't be able to push anywhere near 200GB without a much more powerful server. Bad luck, though, if the site is audio/video heavy. YMMV.

If, however, you're an ethical person, perhaps not...

Tell them "TANSTAAFL"

If they don't get it - either run away or add another zero or two to your invoice.

Throw moon-rocks at them

_________________
Rgds

Stephen

(Linux user since kernel version 0.11)

Yes, I got mixed up in the post, but I did put the correct limit in the contract.

The client is not comparing my proposals to other VPS's... he's comparing it to hosting providers.

In case it matters, it's not just hosting I'm proposing... it's mostly website development, but I want to host it here because of the freedom to install whatever ends up being needed.

Ugh. Best of luck explaining to him that any hosting provider promising that is full of shit.

What I do is let them chose their own hosting provider after I've told them not to, then when something goes wrong say "I told you so" and move them to somewhere decent.

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Alternatively point your customer to somebody like Hostgator and highlight their "unlimited" ToS, where I believe they've even got a get-out clause for their "unlimted" offerings if a weekday ends with a 'y'....

You could also point your customer to HostGators VPS offering and Reseller account. Their limits are actual values there. The VPS in particular are very similar to Linodes.

Linode's limits overall are very similar to the few quality providers I have found. But none of them provide the control panel and flexibility that you find here.

Bottom line, bandwidth and storage space cost money. It can never be unlimited anywhere but in a sales pitch.

Jeff

May I resell resources? Is it allowed here?

Of course. You can even resell entire Linodes if you'd like. In fact, there are people who do exactly that.

Heck, if you wanted, you could even develop your own AWS-style service. Linode might bill by the day rather than the hour, but if you had a bunch of linodes that you were selling out AWS-style, you could sell them by the hour.

Anyhow, that's getting off-topic, but the answer is yes, you can do anything that doesn't violate the terms of service.