Inode — What a Second Domain Costs in File Count

Two ceilings are being spent against simultaneously and independently. Bytes are what a large image library or a video consumes. Inodes are what thousands of small files consume, and the two figures can be nowhere near each other — a plan can be at ten per cent of its space and ninety per cent of its file count.

Which is why an account that feels almost empty can start refusing to write. The disk figure looked fine, so nobody thought to check the other number.

Mail is usually first: each message in each mailbox is its own file, so a few years of a busy inbox across several domains is a very large number. Then application caches, which regenerate themselves while nobody watches. Then staging copies, which duplicate an entire site's file tree per domain. Then old backups kept inside the account, and dependency folders left over from a build.

Notice how many of those scale with the number of names on the account rather than with traffic. Adding a fifth domain to a plan does not add much data; it adds another set of everything above.

Purge application caches first: they are the largest easy win and they rebuild themselves. Then thin mail, oldest first, keeping in mind that each message is a file. Then remove staging copies for sites that are finished, and old backup archives kept inside the account rather than downloaded out of it. Delete unused installations last, because that is where a mistake actually costs you something.

Do it one category at a time on an account serving live names, and take the restore point first. A daily copy exists on every plan and you can restore it yourself from the panel, which is what makes a confident tidy-up possible.