Exceeded disc quota in the account is a nasty problem both for a website owner and server administrator. If the quota is exceeded, websites and some control panel features may not function properly. Moreover, you will lose the ability to upload new files to the hosting, make changes in files, and add images to your website. Your account may be suspended for the stated reason “Disc quota exceeded.” When faced with this issue, website owners often don’t understand why this happened, as they did not make any changes to the website, which had been working crash-free for a long time.
If you received a message informing you that disc space is running out or your account is suspended, make sure you contact support first. We will promptly lift the suspension so that you could fix the issue.
What to do?
You have two options:
- delete unnecessary files on the hosting, which will clear some space;
- upgrade your hosting plan to raise your disc quota.
How to find unnecessary files, considering there are many files on the hosting and I don’t know which of them can be deleted?
You can view disc statistics in the control panel. You can use it to search for the largest directory. Go to this directory to see which files take up the most space.
If the panel does not have detailed statistics or the generation of statistics takes too long, but you have SSH access, use the SSH connection to execute the view statistics command for the account’s root folder:
du -sh *
What can be deleted?
The most trivial examples include files in the trash, logs, cache, legacy backups and archives with website files, which were not deleted at the time of migration.
Trash is the easiest one to check. In the CPanel, you can find it in the File Manager. Press “Enter Trash” button and then press “Clear Trash”.
Error logs are created in the website’s root folder in the error_log file. This is where all errors emerging during script execution are recorded. This file can be deleted, as it does not affect website operation. In addition to this log, the engine may keep internal logs. To find out if this is the case, see your engine documentation.
The engine’s cache is usually stored in the cache folder. Most often, the cache can be cleared through the website’s administration panel while not using the hosting control panel. If the cache cannot be deleted from the administration panel, delete the cache folder and create another one with the same name.
Legacy backups are archives with .zip or .tar.gz extension, which are often stored in the website’s root folder. Old and outdated archives can be deleted. You must understand that these are your backups. Backups that we do are not included in your account disc quota, i.e., they do not take up disc space.