Starting a website is a great way to get more exposure and more business, whether you’re launching an online portfolio to highlight your work or setting up an ecommerce site to sell products and services. One of the decisions you’ll have to make in setting up your site is determining how much disk space, or storage space for content, your website needs.
Think of disk space the same way that you think of hard drive storage for your phone or computer. You will pay your host for the disk space that stores all of the content that is on your website.
Because this is cloud storage, it scales easier than it does on your personal device — you won’t have to swap out a hard drive in order to get more space — it’s still important to make sure that you have enough disk space available to host your site.
On this page:
- How Much Storage Is Enough for My WordPress Website?
- How To Calculate How Much Disk Space I Need
- Is Unlimited Storage Real?
- Why Should I Consider Disk Space When Choosing a Web Hosting Provider?
How Much Storage Is Enough for My WordPress Website?
When setting up a website, you’ll have to decide exactly what kind of site you are planning to operate and have a good idea of what kind of content that you are planning to host. This information is not just key to building a successful strategy for your business, but it’s also essential for understanding how much storage will be enough for your website.
Here is what you will need disk space for:
- Content Management System (CMS): When you are setting up your website, you will need a content management system like WordPress. This will require disk space, the same as how the operating system on your phone or computer needs its own dedicated space.
- Code: As you build your website, either on your own or with a website builder, you will start to amass the framework of your site in code. HTML, CSS, Javascript. It all takes up space, and your disk space will host it.
- Scripts and plugins: To ensure your site is capable of everything that you need, you’ll need to run scripts, plugins, and other tools that can help track analytics, optimize performance, or display advertisements. Again, this all requires disk space.
- Content: Arguably, the most important part of your site, and the part that is likely to require the most disk space, is the actual content. Your content includes pages that have text, photos, videos, and other media. You’ll store all of this media on the available disk space.
With your knowledge of your working budget, you can determine how much disk space you will need now and in the future, along with your goals for growth.
How Do I Calculate How Much Disk Space I Need?
Calculating the amount of disk space your website needs can be a little tricky, especially if your site hasn’t been built yet. But, even if you aren’t entirely sure how big your site will be, you can come up with a rough estimate based on available information.
For example, the average size of a webpage is 2MB. This is a good baseline number to use, though you should ramp that figure up if you plan to have a media-heavy site, which can have pages that host content that is well over 100MB.
A portfolio site usually only requires a few web pages, under 10. A business website may contain 50 pages or more. Ecommerce sites can have hundreds of pages and can regularly expand with more content and new products.
If your site has already been built, you should know how many web pages you have. You can get an idea of the size of each page by using online tools like GTMetrix or Pingdom. Figure out the average size of your website pages, and you will be able to determine exactly how much disk space you need.
If your site has not yet been built, use the averages above to estimate how much disk space you may need. Remember that the average webpage size is 2MB and consider the types of pages that you will want on your site upon launch. Pages like your homepage or landing page, contact page, about page, and several pages of content will likely be necessary at launch.
Whether you have exact figures or you are using the average site as your baseline, here’s a quick formula for determining how much disk space your website needs:
Average size of webpage * number of webpages
This equation tells you how much total MB or GB of storage it will take to store your website. You should make sure that you have at least that much disk space from your web host.
Keep in mind that you are going to grow your site at some point, adding pages with new content, expanding your product offerings, and upgrading parts of your site to improve performance. All of this will require more disk space, so you may want to opt for a plan that offers more storage than you need now. Planning for expansion ensures there is enough room for growth.
Is Unlimited Storage Real?
Some web hosts offer unlimited storage. This solution appears to make your website future-proof, allowing for the possibility of endless expansion. However, there are limitations that your website is likely to face, even if you can store as much information as you would like.
If you have limited bandwidth, it makes it difficult to maximize the space available. You can have all the storage you’d like, but it only goes so far if your website is capped by the amount of data it transfers and limited in the speed at which it transfers that data.
Web hosts know that the average website doesn’t need that much disk space, so unlimited storage is unnecessary. Some website providers also have an upper echelon at which they cap your disk space. Keep an eye out for any potential limitations in the fine print.
Why Should I Consider Disk Space When Choosing a Web Hosting Provider?
Disk space is an important consideration when building and launching a website. The disk space made available by your web hosting provider dictates the size of your website.
Opt for too little disk space, and you will find yourself capped in the type of site you can build, perhaps making decisions to exclude content or plug-ins you initially planned to use. On the other hand, if you opt for more disk space than you need, you pay for more than you are using. It provides the space you need to expand and grow your site, but it also means eating into your funds that could be applied elsewhere.
Disk space is scalable, so you don’t need to worry too much about purchasing the wrong package from your web host. In most cases, you can upgrade your monthly plan to expand your available disk space or downgrade your plan if you find that you don’t need as much space as you initially planned for.
Disk space dictates the kind of site you can build and the type of content you can offer, so make sure you have enough room for all of your ideas.
