Web Business Monthly

---

What's in a Megabyte anyway?

Hosting and Email packages usually refer to the amount of storage you have in terms of Megabytes (MB). It's not easy to determine how storage amounts relate to Web pages, visitors or email messages, so we've come up with some guidelines to help put this in perspective.

The size of a Web page or email message can vary tremendously. For example, if you send someone an email containing only text (no graphics or attachments), the message might be as small as 5 Kilobytes (0.005 MB). However, if you send a message containing a large presentation, photo or MP3 file, that single message might be 5,000 Kilobytes (5MB) or even larger. So how much storage do you actually need?

Here are some rules of thumb to help you determine how much storage you might need*:




Keep in mind the amounts above assume you never delete your old
messages, and that you keep all of your email on the server. Here are some
tips to help you make the most of your email storage:

      Delete unwanted messages regularly, and empty your trash often

      Only save copies of sent messages that you want to keep

      Download your messages to your computer using POP3.

      If you need more storage, you can add it at any time by logging into
        your WebMail account and clicking on the Get More Storage link in the
        left navigation menu



    *Actual file sizes vary. The amounts shown represent typical storage required for these file types.