suppose you have 5TB used on your Storj Node and you decide you need some of that space for other uses…
If you just edit the config file and bring your total disk space down to say 3TB will the network slowly reduce the size of the node? If so, how quickly will that happen? Will doing that hurt your “score” as a node operator?
It will stop receiving data, but it won’t reduce the data unless customers actually delete data. Deletes are around 1% per month at this point. So it will basically take forever. You could possibly chose to graceful exit out of one or 2 satellites, but you can never get back in with that node if you do. There is currently not really a good way to reduce space used other than that.
You can have multiple small nodes instead of one large, then when you need the space, you run the graceful exit procedure on one of the small nodes. This needs planning in advance though, and has some other drawbacks (and features).
It does reduce space VERY slowly but it also reduces your earnings from egress