C-Panel Tutorial

To maintain the highest level of performance on our shared servers we have a maximum inode (file) limit of 50,000 inodes (files) per account. The size of the file does not matter, only the number of files. For example, a DVD image (say, 4.5gb) only counts as one inode, or file. Our limit, as outlined in our terms of service, is 50,000 files per account. We generally don't hold people strictly to this limit, but at the same time we expect our users to respect the limits of the system. When an account has hundreds of thousands of files, it significantly degrades overall disk performance, as each file on the disk must be tracked/indexed.

An easy analogy would be a table of contents or glossary for a book. If the book only has a few hundred pages, the index or glossary is likely to be small and easy to search. If the book has 5,000 pages, finding what you want might take significantly longer. The file system on a server works in a similar way, just on a larger scale. Our experience has shown that 50,000 files per account is a fair number, and accounts that exceed that by a significant amount cause disk performance issues. This message is to inform you that the listed account has significantly exceeded our limits for disk inodes/files and could potentially lead to disk issues.

It is also important to realize that accounts that exceed the inode (file) limit are not backed up by our courtesy weekly backup service, per section 7b of our Terms of Service. Of course, we advise every user to run their own backups to be safe. Accounts over our the 50,000 inode limit are bypassed so that backups can complete in a timely fashion for everyone. Otherwise, accounts with hundreds of thousands or more inodes will utilize more server resources than other accounts, and could lead to file system errors on our backup servers.

This account will be re-checked again in 7 days to verify it is below 50,000 files. If this account remains above the maximum inode limit after repeated checks, we'll have to review the situation further and advise a course of action. It is critical that one of the following actions take place before that happens:

Control Panel Resources