Posted on 2/1/2007, 12:23:25 AM by rudy45
I need to send a 5mb file to someone. I could do so via an email attachment or I could do it via an FTP service, specifically www.yousendit.com. My concern is the amount of bandwidth I consume in sending the file. Is there any difference between sending the attachment via email and sending an email message with a hyperlink to an FTP server, which the recipient would click on to download the file? Isn't it 5mb of usage in either case? Why would I use one vs. the other? Thanks.
Are you on dial up or measured service?
I am on highspeed cable and a 5 Mb file is basically insignificant.
it all depends on the traffic shaping policies of your ISP, but generally speaking should matter. I would use email if possible. Once it's uploaded, it resides on the mail server... your bandwidth is no longer in the equation.
Thumbs down on yousendit. These are much better and free:
http://www.megaupload.com
http://www.sendspace.com
http://www.rapidshare.com
http://www.filefactory.com
http://www.badongo.com
Oops, I forgot to include zShare in the above list:
http://www.zshare.net/
It's another good one and virtually unknown.
Thanks!
The main difference I can see is if you send via email, the 5 MB counts against total inbox space. That's not a concern with gmail, or another "large" service, but many other commercial accounts only have 5 MB or 10 MB limits. Given a choice, I'd set up an ftp or some other download method. Then again, maybe I'm too old-school (i.e. five years ago) in my thinking...
Actually the most striking difference is that email providers cut upload speeds to a few kilo-BITS-per second. So, a 5 MegaBYTE file file would take a lot of time to upload.
PS: 8 BITS = 1 BYTE
And thanks again, jdm, for the other link!
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