Increase or decrease STORAGE size if node is already full

Node Operators
1

Hello,

I´m asking if it is possible to increase or decrease the storage size of a full node in the following szenarios?

Case A:
Is it possible to reconfigure the STORAGE value and increase the total storage amount (disk space considered) of the node?

e.g. current config STORAGE=“4TB” → reconfigure to STORAGE=“6TB”

Case B:
Is it possible to reconfigure the STORAGE value and decrease the total storage amount of the node?

e.g. current config STORAGE=“10TB” → reconfigure to STORAGE=“8TB”

May I get into trouble after reconfiguring the available amount of storage size of a full node?

2

If you have enough empty space on the drive - yes.

You can do that, but the data is not going to disappear. Your node will not accept any new data and space will eventually be freed when some customers delete files, but that may take a long time.

5 Likes
3

For sure, this is what I already considered.

That means the disk space remains blocked by the data content and will not moved to other nodes that having enough free disk space available.
So in this case I´m not able to free the disk space immediately and I might have to wait for a long time.

Thank you for the clarification!

4

There was a suggestion of a “partial graceful exit” - being able to shrink a node), but if the devs are considering implementing it it is very low priority.

5

Pick a satellite that you don’t like and do a graceful exit

6

I will add a caveat to this. Once you graceful exit from a satellite, your node will never be able to work with that satellite again in the future.

3 Likes
7

deletions aren’t insignificant…
so tho you won’t get space freed “immediately” you will get like 5-10% freed space a month if you decrease the max size… ofc these numbers can vary wildly.

however you could also look at it another way… you are paid like 3-4$ pr TB stored pr month, which is actually pretty decent, so if you are running out of space it could payoff to simply expand the capacity on the host.

and then if you have multiple nodes, doing a GE on one doesn’t end your venture into distributed storage hosting, GE also is far from “instant”
i’m currently running a GE on an old node that hasn’t had great profitability… only decreasing size with a pathetic 4MB/s
which when its a 17.5TB node… takes quite a while lol but i needed the capacity…
and started it when storj tokens was at 36cents, so was hoping to get a nice stack of tokens for my 85$ held amount lol

but pretty sure it won’t be done before we get paid… this time…