As video content consumption becomes a mainstream trend, more and more companies and content entrepreneurs plan to build independent video platforms. In the infrastructure selection stage, the bandwidth of the server directly determines the speed of user access, the smoothness of video playback and the carrying capacity of the platform. Among the many configurations, "100M exclusive bandwidth" is currently a common sales specification for Hong Kong servers. For users who plan to operate video stations, is 100M bandwidth enough? Bandwidth, usually measured in Mbps (megabits per second), is used to measure the data transmission capacity between the server and the external network. 100M bandwidth means that the theoretical transmission rate can reach up to 100 megabits per second, which is converted to 12.5 MB/s (megabytes per second) in actual available traffic, with a theoretical maximum transmission volume of ≈750MB per minute and ≈45GB per hour. If it is "100M exclusive bandwidth", it means that the bandwidth will not be shared with other users, which is suitable for continuous and stable transmission of large amounts of data, and is suitable for scenarios such as streaming services, online downloads, and large traffic platforms. The biggest difference between video stations and ordinary content stations is that they have "large content size, continuous access behavior, and obvious high concurrency characteristics." If a user watches a 1080P video, the user will continue to occupy 0.625 MB/s of bandwidth based on an average of 5 Mbps.
Based on this, it is estimated that a 100M bandwidth can theoretically serve about 160 users who normally watch 1080P videos at the same time; if a 720P video is played, the theoretical number of concurrent users can reach more than 300; if the peak number of visitors is higher than this, there may be problems such as playback jams and increased buffer loading time.
Feasibility analysis of 100M Hong Kong server:
1. Suitable for initial deployment of small and medium-sized video sites
For start-up video sites, content communities, and personal video platforms, 100M Hong Kong servers have a good balance between cost and performance. The access speed is faster than that of European, American, and Southeast Asian nodes, with a delay as low as 20-50ms. Some Hong Kong computer rooms provide CN2 GIA lines to ensure high-speed access for domestic users. It can be used in conjunction with CDN to cache hot videos to CDN, reduce the pressure on the source site, and extend bandwidth capacity.
2. Controllable content volume, suitable for short videos or image + video combined sites
If the platform is mainly short videos, for example, each video is within 1-3 minutes, the overall content volume is not large, and 100M bandwidth is enough to support thousands of views per day. At the same time, if the platform content is in the form of text + video, the video is only displayed as auxiliary content, and the actual bandwidth pressure is relatively small.
3. Not suitable for large-scale live broadcast or large membership sites
It should be clear that live broadcast belongs to continuous high-concurrency and high-traffic transmission, and the bandwidth pressure is huge; if the video is long (more than 30 minutes) and the user group is wide, 100M cannot guarantee stable transmission during peak playback; a single user playing a 4K video will occupy nearly 1/5 of the bandwidth, and high-concurrency playback is not feasible; if it is for overseas/national users, the bandwidth and coverage of a single node are limited.
Performance optimization strategy improves bandwidth utilization:
If you decide to use a 100M Hong Kong server to deploy a video site, you can optimize performance through the following technical measures:
1. Enable multi-bitrate and adaptive playback, provide multiple clarity options (360P/480P/720P), and automatically switch playback clarity based on the user's network status to avoid resource waste for high-speed users and loading failure for low-speed users.
2. Video preloading and breakpoint resume mechanism, the front-end player should support preloading cache, downloading while playing, and breakpoint resume to improve user experience and reduce instantaneous bandwidth pressure on the server.
3. CDN acceleration deployment, cache and distribute hot video resources through Hong Kong local CDN, which can significantly reduce the bandwidth pressure of the main server.
4. Limit the number of concurrent connections and playback rate, configure speed limit and connection limit strategy through Nginx or streaming media server, and effectively prevent bandwidth exhaustion caused by abnormal crawlers and large traffic attacks.
5. Separation of static resources and multi-machine deployment, deploying static resources such as images, scripts, CSS, etc. separately to static servers or CDNs, and the main server only processes video streaming tasks to improve the overall bandwidth utilization efficiency.
Suggestions for purchasing Hong Kong servers:
The price of Hong Kong 100M exclusive bandwidth servers is affected by operators, lines, computer room levels, service quality, etc. In the initial stage, video stations can choose 100M exclusive + CN2 optimized lines to focus on ensuring the mainland access experience; avoid using shared bandwidth or peak speed limit products, which cannot support continuous video access; try to choose service providers that support later bandwidth upgrades to avoid content interruptions caused by later migration; if you plan to develop in the long term, it is recommended to consider CDN integration solutions to reduce dependence on source stations.
Hong Kong servers with 100M bandwidth can indeed be used to build video stations, but the premise is that the business scale, traffic, and content quality are controlled within a reasonable range. Through reasonable technical optimization and architecture adjustment, 100M bandwidth is sufficient to support the stable operation of small and medium-sized video stations. However, if you want to achieve large-scale concurrent access, high-definition long video distribution, or even live broadcast functions, you need to consider higher bandwidth and more complex distributed architectures.
