Hi guys,
The following information is for all of the novices in the web hosting world.
1.Difference between shared hosting and dedicated hosting-
The primary difference between dedicated and shared hosting is how the web server is used. With Shared web hosting, the web server is shared between many different websites. With dedicated web hosting, the web server is dedicated to your web site. Both services have their advantages and disadvantages.
Dedicated hosting is any day expensive than shared hosting.

2.What is disk space and bandwidth transfer?
Disk space is measured in Megabytes (MB) or Gigabytes (GB). Megabyte roughly means 1,024,000 characters and Gigabyte roughly means 1,024 Million characters. Imagine a character as one key on your key board. These amounts determine how many files, documents, or data you can have on your web site.

Network Transfer is also measured in Megabytes or gigabytes which determines how much data (how many of your files, documents or data) can be downloaded (transferred to) people accessing your web site. The more people, or the more data each person accesses on your web site the more data is transferred on the network.

The more disk space and network transfer you use the greater percentage of the web-hosting environment you are using – therefore the higher the rent.

Maybe you could answer this for me. I noticed a lot of companies will say they delivers 99.9% uptime, how can they do this and implement all of the updates to software, and server maintenance?

99.9% uptime is the equivalent of about 47 minutes (or just under that) of downtime per month, when you calculate it out per month. OS updates/patches, as well as server maintenance could be done within these time frames, but I believe most uptime SLA's exlude this maintenance time, and update time from the actual 99.9% gaurantee or whatever % they give.

They may say "excluding scheduled maintenance, or mandatory OS updates/patches for network security".

The percentage of time that website is running,i.e, accessible to people on internet is known as uptime. For instance,, if your webhost has an uptime average of 99.0%, it implies that in every 100hrs your site will be down for nearly 1 hr.

Actually, each 0.1% = 15 minutes approx. when based on a monthly Standard -- which is how most Web Hosts use it. Frequency of checking makes no difference, although, most methods of checking uptime on a Server or Web site uses either 5 or 15 minute increments.

As it's not uncommon for a Server to need the occasional reboot and/or individual Services, 99.9% Uptime would allow for 15 minutes of downtime each month. As downtime does not usually happen very often or for very long, with a good Hoster, an Uptime of 99.6% (or one hour of downtime every month) is about the maximum that the majority of people with Web sites will accept.

For a good Hoster, 99.8% or better every month, is about the norm.

what's the difference between Managed hosting and colocation hosting?

Managed hosting is similar to dedicated hosting, but you get more service and support. Specifically, the web hosting company will watch over your server, troubleshoot problems, perform regular backups, install patches, etc. The specific services offered by managed hosting companies vary, so make sure you account for this difference as you compare prices.

Colocation is a form of dedicated hosting. If you collocate a server, you provide the hardware and the colocation provider installs it for you in their data center. They take care of making sure that you have a consistent Internet connection and ensure that you have power to your server. You handle everything else with the server. You usually pay for the rack space (the space that your server takes up) and the bandwidth that your server consumes. Colocation is a service that is generally used by more sophisticated users.

Do you need Managed Hosting?

Before you think about managed hosting you will first need to decide whether or not you need a dedicated server. You will need a dedicated server if you have a high-traffic web site. If you only have a small web site with low traffic levels then a shared hosting arrangement should be fine. A dedicated server is more expensive to rent and more difficult to operate than a shared hosting solution but if your business depends on a steady service then you should seriously consider renting a dedicated server.

The only disadvantage with dedicated web hosting is that you will have to do a lot of the server administration yourself, and to do this you will need to possess some technical skills; hence the demand for managed hosting. If you fall into this category of needing a dedicated server but you need your host to provide system administration services such as security, firewalls, monitoring and reporting services, and data backup then most likely you will need managed hosting.

As downtime does not usually happen very often or for very long, with a good Hoster, an Uptime of 99.6% (or one hour of downtime every month) is about the maximum that the majority of people with Web sites will accept.
- It seems like 15 minutes of downtime means the host isn't patching the server as often as it should...

You must be accustomed to Microsoft servers. Unix machines will go months w/o the need to touch them.

Unix/Linux machine require patches just as Windows servers do. The key being that the vulnerabilities and exploits for Windows seem to far outnumber those for Linux.

Unix/Linux machine require patches just as Windows servers do.
- Especially when you have a lot of software on the server.