When choosing a webhost make sure to read the terms of service (TOS) and the fine print very carefully.
Recently I was told by a very popular web hosting company that I had to reduce my files to below 50000 inodes or upgrade to a dedicated server which wasn’t cheap and out of my budget.
I searched the internet for a reliable cheap hosting plan without these limits and found Host Monster which has great reviews and great pricing with 24 hour customer support! So I switched to Hostmonster. So far I am very pleased!
Here is the email warning I received:
Hi,
To maintain performance on our shared servers, we have a maximum inode (file) limit of 50,000 inodes (files) per account.
The size of the file does not matter, only the size. For example, a DVD image (say, 4.5gb) only counts as one inode, or file. Our limit, as outlined in our terms of service, is 50,000 files per account. We generally don’t hold people strictly to this limit, but at the same time we expect our users to respect the limits of the system.
When an account has hundreds of thousands of files, it significantly degrades overall disk performance, as each file on the disk must be tracked/indexed.
An easy analogy would be a table of contents or glossary for a book. If the book only has a few hundred pages, the index or glossary is likely to be small, and easy to search. If the book has 5,000 pages, finding what you want might take significantly longer. The file system on a server works in a similar way, just on a larger scale. Our experience has shown that 50,000 files per account is a fair number, and accounts that exceed that by a significant amount cause disk performance issues. This message is to inform you that the listed account has significantly exceeded our limits for disk inodes/files.
It is also important to note that accounts that exceed the inode (file)limit are not backed up.
We do clearly state this in our terms, but it’s being restated here as a courtesy.
Of course, we advise every user to run their own backups to be safe.
This account will be re-checked in 7 days to ensure it is below 50,000 files.
It is critical that one of the following actions take place before that date, to avoid interruption of service:
a) reduce the number of inodes/files. This change must be permanent; if you have a high number of cache files or similar, and you expect them to naturally exceed the inode limit again in the future, the configuration must be changed to limit the total number of cached files.
b) upgrade to dedicated service, where inode counts are no longer checked. In many cases, accounts that significantly exceed our inode/file limits have simply outgrown the shared environment, and a dedicated server is the logical choice. In many cases, the transfer from a shared to dedicated server will incur no charge. In rare situations, accounts with excessive numbers of accounts or users may require a fee; the transfer department would advise you of that fact prior to the transfer taking place. If you’ve read this far, it’s clear you’re serious about taking care of the issue and we can offer you 50% off off the first month’s purchase of a dedicated server. To receive the discount, please:
Reply to this email stating you’d like to upgrade.
You will automatically be assigned a ticket number, which will be visibile in the subject line. You may need to confirm your email if this is the first time you’ve ever sent us a ticket or emailed one of our departments.
Hostgator, Hatchling, Baby, Swamp.
Of course I didn’t upgrade to a dedicated server, I just opened another webhosting account with hostmonster which is affiliated with Bluehost.
