4 Ways to Minimize Download Bandwidth

If your website is dishing out a lot of files, you may find your bandwidth diminishing significantly. Particularly large file can add up pretty quickly when hundreds or even thousands of people download them. Here are some ways to reduce your network load.

1. File compression – This seems basic enough, but you can save tremendous amount of disk space, and in turn download bandwidth, simply by compressing your files. Try archive and compression like tar.bz2, tar.gz, or .rar.

2. P2P File Sharing – Peer-to-Peer file sharing is a great way to reduce load. Instead of every user downloading the file from you, all users share in the distribution of the file. BitTorrent has become particularly popular for use with large downloads.

3. File Hosting – There are many file-sharing sites that will allow you to host your files remotely and then share them with users. Many of these, however, limit download speeds for users who are not themselves subscribers.

4. Cloud Storage – If you know you are going to be send a large amount of data each month, you may consider using a cloud storage service, like Amazon S3. These are normally very inexpensive and will save you money over time.

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How to create a compressed tar.gz archive

Compressing files is an important skill to have. You never know when you might need to move large amounts of data, and knowing how to compress them into a smaller sized single archive can save you a lot of time and disk space. Compressed files are particularly useful for backups and long-term storage of data.

Most desktop operating systems provided built-in support for zip, tar, and/or gzip files. With a graphical interface, it is easy to create compressed files, but on a server, you need to learn how to do it from the command line. The most common Linux compression format is .tar.gz, which is a tarball compressed with gzip.

To compress a directory containing files, type from the secure shell (SSH) prompt:

tar -pczf name-of-archive.tar.gz /home/user/files

You should now have a compressed archive that you can transfer easily and uncompress when you need it.

Linux File Compression

Question: I downloaded a script that I want to install on my website, but the file extension is tar.gz. What is it, and what do I do with it?

Answer: That file extension, .tar.gz means that the file has been doubly compressed with both TAR and GZIP. These are both common Unix and Linux programs that have better compression ratios than the typical Windows ZIP files. All you need to uncompress the file is the right software.

If you are running a dedicated server, just upload the file and then run the following command:

tar -zxvf filename.tar.gz

This will extract the file’s contents and preserve any directories inside.

If you are using a shared hosting account and do not have SSH access, you will need to extract the files onto your local computer and then upload them. For Windows, you can download a free and open source application called 7-Zip, which handles tar, zip, gzip, rar, and a host of others. For Mac OS X, try GUI Tar, which is also free of charge.