1. Knowledge Base
  2. >
  3. Results
  4. >
  5. Inode Usage

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, and anything you store on the server.

There is currently a limit of 100k/200k inodes on our shared accounts.

Here are the topics we will discuss in this article:

What is the 100k/200k inode limit?

Shared and Reseller hosting plans only allow 100,000 files per cPanel. This is a "soft limit," meaning that you will still be able to upload files while the limit is reached. 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 200,000 files, then it will violate our Terms of Service and result in possible suspension.

VPS hosting is limited to one million (1,000,000) inodes. Unlike Shared/Reseller hosting, 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 hosting has no inode limits in place, only those that exist for the file system on the server (such as ext3).

How can I see how many inodes I am using?

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

Shared and Cloud hosting packages

Both Shared and Cloud hosting customers can find their cPanel's inode count in the Usage section on the right-hand menu.

To locate your inode count in cPanel:

  1. Log in to cPanel.
  2. Navigate to the Usage section on the right-hand side. Then click on the Inodes link. 

    cPanel Usage section

  3. The next page will show the breakdown of inodes per directory and the total Inodes in your cPanel. It is broken down per domain, addon domain, and subdomain. 

    cPanel Total Inode Usage

Reseller and Optimized WordPress hosting packages

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

VPS hosting packages

Depending on whether you're a KVM or Legacy VPS/Dedi hosting customer, the instructions on viewing your Inode Usage vary.

Let us identify first if you are a KVM or Legacy VPS/Dedicated hosting customer.

KVM (Kernel-based Virtual Machine) VPS hosting

  • These are the VPS accounts purchased after April 13, 2021 (VPS) and Dedicated hosting purchased after November 2020.
  • Your Plan ID begins with VH.

Legacy VPS hosting

  • These are the  VPS accounts purchased before April 13, 2021 (VPS) and Dedicated hosting purchased before November 2020.
  • Your Plan ID begins with VPS.
What is your Plan ID? Click here to know how to find out
  1. Log in to the Customer Portal.
  2. Navigate to the Hosting tab.

    HostGator Customer Portal Hosting Tab

  3. Click on Manage underneath the primary domain of the hosting plan.

    Manage Package

  4. On the top-left side, you will find the Plan ID below your domain name.

    Plan ID

KVM VPS hosting

KVM VPS customers can view their inode usage via the Terminal. 

  1. Log in to WHM. 
  2. Using the search boxes either on the left-side panel or at the top of the page, search for Terminal.

    WHM Terminal

  3. In the terminal, run the command: df -i.
  4. The result will show the Inodes in your server.

    KVM Inode usage

Legacy VPS

Legacy VPS customers can view the current inode usage from the Virtuozzo Panel.

  1. Within your Virtuozzo panel, click on the Resources icon.
  2. Check under the Disk Usage section. The limit is called diskinodes and will report how many inodes are currently on your VPS account.

You can also check your Inodes usage via WHM's Terminal.

  1. Log in to WHM. 
  2. Search for Terminal using the search function on the left-hand side.

    WHM Terminal

  3. In the terminal, run the command: quota -s <cpanel username>.

    Legacy VPS Inode usage

  4. The result will show the Inodes in your server.

How can I reduce my inode count?

Simply delete any files or emails you no longer need.

All accounts with SSH access

Shared and Cloud Hosting, VPS, and Dedicated hosting 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 of any account on their server, and all other users will only be able to check their own username.

You can view the specific folder's inode count by using the 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"

This may look messy, however, the output shows a nicely formatted list of detailed inode counts on your account:

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

  • Continuously deleting  and publishing large numbers of files (i.e., 10,000+)
  • If the cPanel exceeds 200,000 inodes, please refer to section C. Unacceptable Resource Usage, Part B. Inodes of our Acceptable Use Policy.