How Bandwidth Works

[Shyne151]

I see people saying "shorten your sig to take up less bandwidth" and "don't quote posts with videos it takes up bandwidth"... which leads me to think some don't quite how bandwidth is measured.

So what is bandwidth?

It’s the measure of the amount of data that can be transferred to or from the server in a monthly period in this case. The measuring standard is usually in GigaBytes for web servers.

Here is how measuring equates:

8 Bits = 1 Byte

1024 Bytes = 1 KiloByte

1024 KiloBytes = 1 MegaByte

1024 MegaBytes = 1 GigaByte

1024 GigaBytes = 1 TeraByte

Another thing to remember is the only bandwidth that effects this site is stuff hosted on the SMD server... not photobucket, not youtube, not other sites.

Let’s do a little math here for the first example...

One character equals 1byte of bandwidth.

This is the said signature:

2002 Honda Accord (2 door Ex) (Team Gates)

Stock Sound Quality, Street 1 SPL

2005 4x Loudest single 10” subwoofer.....137.7 dB in an SQ vehicle with 220 watts

2005 3x Best of Show/Best of Best of Show

2005 Virginia State Champion Stock Sound Quality

2005 3rd World Finals Stock Sound Quality

Alpine 9856

Eclipse 2102 (30 band EQ)

SoundStream XTA 480.4 (4 channel)

SoundStream XTA 480.2 (2 channel)

Sony Xplod 6.5" (stock front door locations w/ factory dash tweets)

Sony Xplod 6x9" ( stock rear deck locations)

Mobil Spec 1 Farad Capacitor

Mobil Spec wire and interconect

10" Infinity 1030

1.75^3ft slot ported enclosure tuned at 42 Hz.

2003 Chevrolet Trailblazer LTZ (Team Monster Illusions/ Team Action (Action Tint, Sound and Security)

Stock+ Sound Quality, Modified 5 SPL

2006 Virginia State Champion Stock Plus Sound Quality

2006 2nd World Finals Installation Stock Plus Sound Quality

2006 Virginia State Champion Modified 5

2006 Virginia State Champion Drive By 4

2006 Virginia State Record Modified 5

2006 Virginia State Record Modified Reality 5

2006 Virginia State Record Drive By 4

2006 Countless Sound Quality and SPL Best of Show/Best of Best of Show

2006 6x+ In Car Entertainment

2006 9x+ Sound Quality Installation

2006 7x+ SPL Installation

2006 MECA Head (Competitor) of the Year

ModEx+ (Modified Extream Plus) Sound Quality, X1 SPL (Radical Extream 1)

2007 X1 Virgina State Record

2007 April Member of the Month

2007 6x+ Best of Show/Best of Best of Show

2007 5x+ SPL Installation

2007 12x+ Sound Quality Installation

2007 5x+ In Car Entertainment

Countless 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes in all classes ( mostly 1st !!! )

Primary SQ vehicle, daily driver, 151.1 dB - 154.6 dB

Alpine IVA-W200

Clarion N.I.C.E.

Visualogic 7" Headrest monitor

Sony PS2

Alpine PXA-H701

Phonex Gold DD5

Eclipse 2102 (30 band EQ)

Memphis 16-VBF1 (linedriver)

MTX 91002 (bridged)

2 MTX 3404 (4 channel)

1 Stinger SP1000 (battery under hood)

4 Kinetik HC600

2 Stinger SADAH12 (12 farad capacitors)

MB Quart QSC 216 (6.5" (kick panel))

Q-Forms kick panels

MB Quart 164 (add a woofer (front door))

MTX Thunder 1000 (1" silk dome (dash))

Eclipse SE8365 (6.5" (rear))

8 MTX 5504-10 (10" subwoofers)

14^3ft fiberglass common chamber slot ported enclosure tuned to 42Hz

Load Boss 318 amp altenator

Stinger Custom Pro wire

Stinger interconect

(removed the 8 10's and amps, now the following are in the vehicle)

Memphis 16-MCH1300 ( Memphis Bell 5 channel)

Memphis 16-MCA3004 (4 channel)

Memphis 15-MOJO12D2 (12" Mojo Subwoofer)

Just to try it we (Action) put 4 Kicker L7 15" in my CRX with a Kicker 2500.1 and some Kicker comps in the front doors off a Kicker 200.4 We only did a 163 dB with it so we pulled it out.

Alarm, YEP..Protected by Springfield Aromory!!! ( USMC Expert )

That signature contains 2,772characters (including spaces)...

So that equates to 2,772bytes... from the previous information I posted we can conclude that the signature takes up 2.7KB.

To put that in perspective, every time that sig is viewed the server sends out 2.7KB... now look at the background on this forum... that is 522KB that is being sent out by the server each time a page is loaded (mind you most the time the image is cached on your computer so it doesn't have to be sent out....).

So really shortening his signature is not going to save that much bandwidth, yes it will be more visually appealing... but not saving enough bandwidth to be noticeable.

And for the second example... saying not to quote videos in a post.

Most the time the videos are hosted on photobucket or youtube, not on SMD... which uses absolutely zero of SMD's bandwidth, except for the actual code to pull up the image... which is:

<a href="http://s156.photobucket.com/albums/t33/Coolwazabi/?action=view&current=Picture014-3.flv" target="_blank"><img src="http://i156.photobucket.com/albums/t33/Coolwazabi/th_Picture014-3.jpg" border="0" class="linked-image" /></a><

That contains 238bytes... which is really saving nothing.

I made this post to educate people since it seemed some didn't understand quite what bandwidth is, not to be an ass hole. I come to this site to learn, and teach when I can.

Flame on if you must.

***disclaimer***

It's 11am and I have a killer hangover so some of this might seem confusing or the numbers might be slightly off... i'll edit it later when I'm at "100%".

[AI James]

its not so much bandwidth the first example its an annoyance.

[David]

its not so much bandwidth the first example its an annoyance.

Finally Someone Gets It, your exactly right James.

[Shyne151]

its not so much bandwidth the first example its an annoyance.

This I know... I looked at it and was like "cool he has alot of accomplishments, but fuck that I don't even want to read all that"... but someone said to shorten it because it saves bandwidth... which in reality it does... but VERY VERY little.

And if you look in the post i did hint towards annoyance when i said it would be more visually appealing if it was shorter

Edited June 8, 2008 by Shyne151