In a conversation with some friends, I was going off on my web-hosting business soap-box and they were asking for specific examples. I told them that they could look up literally any webhosting plan that claimed to be “unlimited” and if they could find their terms and conditions, they would find the small print. What they found on the first random site was this:

“7b.) INODES
The use of more than 50,000 inodes on any shared account may potentially result in suspension. Accounts found to be exceeding the 50,000 inode limit will automatically be removed from our backup system to avoid overusage. Every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your account uses up 1 inode.

Sites that slightly exceed our inode limits are unlikely to be suspended; however, accounts that constantly create and delete large numbers of files on a regular basis, have hundreds of thousands of files, or cause file system damage may be flagged for review and/or suspension.

The primary cause of excessive inodes seems to be due to users leaving their catchall address enabled, but never checking their primary account mailbox. Over time, tens of thousands of messages (or more) build up, eventually pushing the account past our inode limit. To disable your default mailbox, login to cPanel and choose “Mail”, then “Default Address”, “Set Default Address”, and then type in: :fail: No such user here

8.) Bandwidth Usage
You are allocated a monthly bandwidth allowance. This allowance varies depending on the hosting package you purchase. Should your account pass the allocated amount we reserve the right to suspend the account until the start of the next allocation, suspend the account until more bandwidth is purchased at an additional fee, suspend the account until you upgrade to a higher level of package, terminate the account and/or charge you an additional fee for the overages. Unused transfer in one month cannot be carried over to the next month.”

First – with regards to the INODES – not a very friendly term for laymen. I’m pretty techy myself, and that terms means little to me. What is more important is their definition of what uses one of these INODE allocations: Every file (a webpage, image file, email, etc) on your account uses up 1 inode. Seriously? An EMAIL?! Now, maybe you can find a better place to look, but one source wrote that the average size of an email was around 7-11kb. Let’s round that up to their high end and use 11kb. Supposing you use all your nodes on emails, even if you had 50,000, you would only be using 550,000kb, or 550MB. Roughly 1/2 of a gig. So it’s possible that, even with their unlimited plan, you could be shut down for using half a gig of space! Absurd.

With respect to the second caveat that I mentioned, you have to read no further than the first sentence: You are allocated a monthly bandwidth allowance. Really? But… I thought the plan was unlimited?! (Keep in mind, that both of these stipulations were small print for their quote-unquote unlimited plans…

Just saying.

This is the kind of BS you won’t get with PeachyHost. We’re not out to trick anyone which is why we push our “PeachyPlan” first and foremost… this plan doesn’t promise miracles, but we will give our word to work with each customer to make sure that your bandwidth needs are not just met, but exceeded.