If you have received an email from our system referring to “Hosting Storage Limit Approaching” or “Hosting Storage Limit Reached”, please see some additional information below.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?
“Storage capacity” refers to the allowed amount of files / data that can be stored for your designated hosting plan. In example if your hosting plan allows you up to 1000MB (1GB) of storage, you can store up to that amount of website files, emails, and database data.
WHAT HAPPENS IF IT REACHES CAPACITY?
In the event your storage capacity is reached, your website will remain live but it will not allow anymore website files / emails / database data to be stored. This could result in one or more of the following:
- Emails being rejected: If someone sends you an email to your email at @yoursite.com, it could be rejected since there is no more space to store it. Likewise if you go to send an email using your hosting account, the server could reject your email from being sent.
- New files: If you attempt to upload new files via FTP or your admin tools (i.e. upload photos, etc.) the file will not save properly and result in a 0 byte file.
- Database data: If your website allows people to register, login, or place orders, it may restrict them from doing so due to the data taking up additional space.
WHAT ARE MY OPTIONS?
You have several options available to you which include:
A. Upgrade your hosting account: You may upgrade your hosting account to next level account, or simply upgrade your storage capacity. In most cases this will slightly increase your subscription fee. If you desire this option please contact us back for pricing and include the following information: your domain name, the amount of additional storage you desire (i.e. in MB or GB or indicate “double”, etc.).
B. Clean up hosting account: You can also opt to cleanup unneeded files & emails on your hosting account to bring down the amount of used storage space.
HOW DO I CHECK STORAGE CAPACITY?
Login to www.yoursite.com/cpanel/ using your FTP username and password, then look to the left column to see total storage used and available.
WHAT IF I HAVE REACHED CAPACITY?
If you have already reached capacity, then your options are still the same for A) upgrading or B) cleanup of your hosting account. Your website will remain live, but may not function properly. In some extreme cases where we are familiar with your website build and know that it may loose you sales, we reserve the right to auto upgrade your hosting plan storage capacity at the current percentage cost within 24 hours if no response from you. See above information for more details of what this may entail.
SOME ADDITIONAL TIPS ON HOSTING ACCOUNT CLEANUP:
Here are some additional tips and instructions for cleaning up your hosting account to drop amount of used storage.
1. Backup files: If you have backup zip files of your website or database, these typically take up allot of storage. Ensure to keep the most recent one, but delete the others. This can be done via FTP into your website. If you are not actively creating backups, then you do not need to worry about this step.
2. File storage: If you commonly use your FTP account to store files, consider downloading those off your hosting account to your local computer and deleting the copies online.
3. Email usage: Email usage is one of the most common causes of storage capacity issues, for users who are mainly using WEBMAIL and not downloading their emails to their local computer or via a system like GMAIL. To determine how much storage is taken up by email accounts we host of @yoursite.com, follow these steps:
a. Login to your control panel and go into the EMAIL ACCOUNTS section (see instructions above for your specific hosting account type).
b. For any email accounts over 50MB of usage, try to clear out those emails. See additional details below.
CLEANING UP EMAIL ACCOUNTS:
If you notice that one or more of your email accounts is taking up more than 50MB of storage space, chances are that you are not using the email accounts as recommended. Common causes for this buildup includes:
a. Access via webmail vs. using your computer to download emails.
b. Access via a smart phone with option to KEEP COPY ON SERVER checked.
c. Access via a computer using software like MS Outlook, Windows Live Mail, with option for KEEP COPY ON SERVER checked.
While using one of these methods to access emails remotely when you are away from your computer is fine, you should ensure that you have that email account in question plugged into a computer where it fully downloads emails on regular basis. This ensures that it doesn’t take up as much valuable storage space, and in the event that the email account gets corrupted it will avoid you loosing those emails. Also of important note is that if you ever opt to move to different hosting provider, it can be very difficult and sometimes even impossible to move emails stored on a server, so having a copy on your local computer is advised. Here is some specific tips for email cleanup based upon your usage:
1. Local computer: This is the ideal method for downloading emails so you have copies, while not taking up storage space. If you are using software like MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail or other similar, each one has an option for “leaving copy of email on server”. Ensure this is UNCHECKED else it will keep a copy on the hosting server and thus take up storage. For MS email software products, the steps to verify this (may slightly differ) are as follows:
a. Open the email program.
b. Click on TOOLS > ACCOUNTS / ACCOUNT SETTINGS / EMAIL ACCOUNTS (depends on program).
c. Double click on your email account in question.
d. Click on the MORE SETTINGS button > then ADVANCED tab > DELIVERY section. There is an option there for “Leave a copy of messages / emails on the server”. Ensure this is UNCHECKED. This ensures each time you click SEND / RECEIVE that you are downloading full copies to your local computer, and then they are wiped off the server.
2. Smart Phone / Tablet:
If you are accessing emails via your smart phone or tablet, chances are it is setup to “Leave a copy of messages / emails on the server”. Please see your corresponding manual for that phone / tablet to determine how to shut this option off. Or if you prefer to keep copies on the server, you will have to ensure that you delete out the older ones often. Or alternatively setup your computer using email program of choice to download those every once in awhile.
3. Webmail:
Webmail is fantastic for accessing your email from any computer with internet access, for those who do not have it setup to get emails other ways. However webmail should NEVER be used as your only method for accessing emails, as occassional bugs can occur within webmail programs when there is too much email to access for a single account that includes:
a. Webmail software may timeout after login.
b. Webmail software can sometimes corrupt emails when too many are present.
c. Storing all your emails on a hosting server is not the best practice, in case the server ever crashes and emails are lost.
We hope this information has helped you regarding your “storage capacity” and options available.
