Case Study: Podcast Network Serves 10 Million Downloads Monthly with Hostxpeed Object Storage

Introduction

PodStream hosts 200 podcasts with 10 million monthly downloads. Audio file storage and bandwidth costs were ballooning. This case study covers their migration to Hostxpeed object storage.

The Storage Challenge

AWS S3 cost $0.023/GB for storage + $0.09/GB for transfer. They stored 20TB of audio (fluctuating) and served 300TB/month → $1,000 (storage) + $27,000 (transfer) = $28,000/month.

Hostxpeed Object Storage

Hostxpeed S3‑compatible: $0.01/GB storage, $0.01/GB transfer. Same 20TB + 300TB = $200 (storage) + $3,000 (transfer) = $3,200/month. Savings: 88% ($24,800/month).

Migration Process

Used rclone to sync from AWS S3 to Hostxpeed object storage. Updated podcast RSS feed URLs. Migration completed in 48 hours with no downtime.

Performance

Download speeds comparable to AWS (global CDN integration). Average download time for 50MB episode: 1.8s. Hostxpeed also provided free CloudFront alternative (pull zone).

Additional Benefits

Object lifecycle policies auto‑delete old episodes after 6 months. Versioning protects against accidental deletion. Hostxpeed support helped tune multipart uploads for large files.

Conclusion

PodStream now saves $300,000/year. They recommend Hostxpeed object storage for any media‑heavy startup.