• Hard disk space (Limited according to plan or package selection/cannot claim to offer unlimited disk space)
• Total Monthly Traffic Allowace (Should be a limit according to plan or package/cannot claim to offer unlimited bandwidth/traffic)

Only sites like Amazon/Ebay/Yahoo use 100GB/wk and that's spread across many servers. Typical sites will use between 2-10GB of traffic allowance per month.

• Your IP Address (depending on plan you can purchase more)
• Your own personal domain (can have unlimited subdomains)
• FTP accounts (can be unlimited)
• POP3 Accounts (can be unlimited)
• Webmail (Horde/Neomail/Sqmail)
• Webstats (Webalizer/Awstats/etc)
• Microsoft Frontpage Extensions
• SSH Access/Telnet
• Email Virus Protection
• Mailing Lists
• Anti Spam Tools (spamassasin/etc)
• Daily Data Backups (Very Necessary)
• Mysql Databases (can be unlimited)
• Free Scripts (PHP/PERL/CGI/Python/etc)
• At Least %99.0 uptime guarantee (always)
• Online Control Panel (Cpanel/Ensim/etc)
• Online Shopping cart (Oscommerce/MIVA/etc)
• 24/7 Support (phone/ticket/e-mail/chat)
• Provide you with information regarding their Datacenter (Location/Bandwidth Provider/etc)

Hosting companies use the unlimited scheme to get away with overselling (overselling is selling more resources they can deliver).
Hosting companies should never advertise for unmetered/unlimited transfer (sometimes called bandwidth).

• BANDWIDTH is the the size of the pipe (how much data can be pumped thru at once).
• TRANSFER refers to the amount that can be pumped thru in a given period, usually sold in monthly chucks.
  
• For example:
  
  If you have a 1Mb pipe, you can ONLY pump 1Mb of data out a second....multiply that by 60sec, then by 60mins, they by 24 hours, then by 30 days, and there you have your monthly traffic allowance.
  
• You cannot physically do more (now share that bandwidth with 300 other users all of who are promised UNLIMITED transfer (not bandwidth) and you see the problem and the deception. It's an adverstising ploy to watch out for).

Windows vs. Linux Hosting:

The following are the advantages of using Linux based web server compared to Windows based web server:

Stable: Linux/Unix operating systems have traditionally been believed to be very stable and robust. A web site housed on a Linux operating system will have very high up-time (of the order of 99.9%). Of course, other factors such as power supply, network admin skills, and network load etc. also matter when it comes to maintaining the system uptime.

Low cost of ownership: The Linux OS comes free of cost (or at very insignificant cost, usually cost of distribution). Also, it has full fledged server, and desk top applications that comes free along with the OS. These server applications (such as FTP, Web Server, DNS Server, File Server etc.) being free, are also very stable.

Ease of use: When it comes to web hosting, it is easy to host on Linux web servers. The process of uploading and hosting is almost same for both Linux and Windows web servers. If you want to use a Windows based tool such as Front Page for uploading a web site on to a Linux based web server, make sure that the Front Page extensions are enabled. This is only required if you are uploading using HTTP feature (http://www.yourwebsite.com) of Front Page. Front Page also makes it possible to upload a web site using FTP. You need to select ftp://www.yourwebsite.com for up loading using front page FTP option. Note that if you select "Front Page Extensions" during web site design, you must enable Front Page extensions on a Linux web server also. These days, all Linux web servers should offer an online control panel which will help install Front Page extensions, and this should pose no problem for hosting on a Linux platform. You can use almost all types of file extensions (or scripts) when using Linux web server. Commonly, the following extensions are supported:
.cgi, .html, .htm, .pl, .php, .shtml, .asp (requires additional plug-in), .xml, and others.

Basically it means that you can host web sites that use different types of server side scripts including .cgi, .pl, .php, and .asp (with plug-in).

Easy to move between hosts: A web site designed to be hosted on a Linux based web server can be hosted on a Windows web server easily, where as the reverse is not always true. This provides flexibility in changing hosts as required.

Most widely used: Linux/Unix based web hosting is most widely used compared to Windows based web hosting, hence greater choice in choosing a web host.

Scalability: A web site is dynamic. Usually, a web site starts with a few pages of html and grows over a period of time to suit the customers requirements. It is preferable to design a web site keeping this requirements in mind. A web site designed for compatibility with a Linux/Unix based web server meets the scalability requirement easily without making any site wide design changes.

On the downside, Linux based web server is not fully compatible with Microsoft technologies. If you are using any specialized applications or VB for development of your web site, it is preferable to host with a Windows based web server.

The main distinction of Windows servers is that they are configured to be compatible with Microsoft applications, such as MS Access and MS SQL. Windows also offer web developers the use of programming environments such as Active Server Pages (ASP), Visual Basic Scripts, MS Index Server and Cold Fusion.

Linux hosting also offers many server applications and programs that have been written exclusively for use with Linux. Since Linux is an open source platform, tons of developers have already created a wide variety of CGI scripts, PHP scripts, and MySQL applications that will work on nearly any Linux system. If you choose Windows hosting, you may find that many of the scripts you want to use won't work since they were not designed for Windows.

Regards,
Omar