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Inode Usage

 

An inode is a data structure used to keep information about a file on your hosting account. The number of inodes indicates the number of files and folders you have. This includes everything on your account, emails, files, folders, anything you store on the server.

There is currently an limit of 100k/250k inodes on our shared accounts.
 

What is the 100k/250k inode limit?

Shared and Reseller servers only allow 100,000 files per cPanel. This is a "Soft limit" meaning that while the limit is reached, you will still be able to upload files. However once the account passes the 100,000 file threshold it will no longer be included in our weekly backups. Additionally, if the account happens to exceed 250,000 files then it will be in violation of our Terms of Service and can result in possible suspension.

VPS accounts are limited to one million (1,000,000) inodes. Unlike Shared/Reseller accounts this is a "Hard limit," if the threshold is reached you will no longer be able to upload files to your account. Inodes do not affect the weekly backups for VPS accounts.

Dedicated servers have no inode limits in place, only those that exist for the file system on the server (such as ext3).
 

How can I reduce my inode count?

Simply delete any files or emails you no longer need.
 

How can I see how many inodes I am using?

How to find your inodes will depend on the type of hosting you have.
 

Cloud and Shared Hosting Packages

Shared customers can see the inode count in cPanel when using the HG style. They can find it under the Usage section on the right-hand menu:

HostGator cPanel sage section

 

Depending on whether you are using X3 or Paper Lantern, it will be in a different place.

To locate your inode count in Paper Lantern:

  1. Click Server Stats from the left-hand menu.
  2. It is listed as the number of Files in the BACKUPS section

    If you have not yet switched to using Paper Lantern on your hosting package, it is recommended that you do so. However, X3 users may still check their inode usage from the Statistics section of the left-hand sidebar in cPanel when using the HostGator theme.

 

Reseller and Optimized WordPress Hosting (OWP) Packages

Reseller and OWP users can call or join live chat and we will be glad to check the inode usage for your account.

 

VPS Packages

VPS customers can view the current inode usage from the Virtuozzo Panel, simply click on the Resources icon and check under the disk usage section. The limit is called "diskinodes" and will report how many inodes are currently on your VPS account.

 

All Accounts with SSH Access

Shared, Cloud Hosting, VPS, and Dedicated servers all have SSH by default. Using SSH you can check the inodes of an account by using the following command:

quota -s <cpanel username>

Users with root access may use the above command to check the inodes for any account on their server, all other users will only be able to check their own username.

You can view the inodes for a specific folder using the following command:

echo "Detailed Inode usage for: $(pwd)" ; for d in `find -maxdepth 1 -type d |cut -d\/ -f2 |grep -xv . |sort`; do c=$(find $d |wc -l) ; printf "$c\t\t- $d\n" ; done ; printf "Total: \t\t$(find $(pwd) | wc -l)\n"

While this may look messy, it outputs a nicely formatted list of detailed inode usage on your account:

TOS Inode violations can consist of the following (however not limited to):

  • Continuously publishing and deleting large numbers of files (i.e. 10,000+)
  • If the cPanel account exceeds 250,000 inodes, please refer to section C. Unacceptable Resource Usage, Part B. Inodes of our Acceptable Use Policy.