Routine storage hygiene maintains optimal performance and prevents an overrun of contracted storage limits as applications grow.

Troubleshoot file system storage

File system storage use increases mainly because of accumulated log files, uncompressed assets, temporary files, or old environment backups. The following section provides instructions on how to manage and reduce storage volumes:

• Clear temporary files: Open the temporary file directory at /mnt/tmp/ and delete old or unnecessary temporary files.

• Clean up orphaned managed files: Drupal tracks uploaded files in the file_managed table. Cron must purge files that never attach to content. 

• Remove old backups: Check for manual database dumps with sql or sql.gz extensions, or codebase archives with tar.gz extensions left behind in the file system after deployments or testing, especially in non-production environments.

• Audit log directories: Massive, unrotated log files consume gigabytes of space. Ensure that custom log mechanisms rotate and archive logs properly, and delete outdated logs.

• Offload large media assets: For applications that host large media libraries, move assets from the file system allocation of the subscription to external object storage such as Amazon S3 with the S3 File System Drupal module.

• : Drupal generates image styles such as thumbnails and resized images, which bloat the directory over time. Clear image styles through Drush to delete these generated images safely and free up space.

Routine storage hygiene maintains optimal performance and prevents an overrun of contracted storage limits as applications grow.

Troubleshoot file system storage

File system storage use increases mainly because of accumulated log files, uncompressed assets, temporary files, or old environment backups. The following section provides instructions on how to manage and reduce storage volumes:

• Clear temporary files: Open the temporary file directory at /mnt/tmp/ and delete old or unnecessary temporary files.

• Clean up orphaned managed files: Drupal tracks uploaded files in the file_managed table. Cron must purge files that never attach to content. 

• Remove old backups: Check for manual database dumps with sql or sql.gz extensions, or codebase archives with tar.gz extensions left behind in the file system after deployments or testing, especially in non-production environments.

• Audit log directories: Massive, unrotated log files consume gigabytes of space. Ensure that custom log mechanisms rotate and archive logs properly, and delete outdated logs.

• Offload large media assets: For applications that host large media libraries, move assets from the file system allocation of the subscription to external object storage such as Amazon S3 with the S3 File System Drupal module.

• Clear image styles: Drupal generates image styles such as thumbnails and resized images, which bloat the sites/default/files/styles directory over time. Clear image styles through Drush to delete these generated images safely and free up space.

• Clear aggregated assets: Compiled asset bundles accumulate in sites/default/files/css/ and sites/default/files/js/. Deletion of these bundles is safe because they regenerate when needed. 

• Avoid file duplication: Do not copy the entire production sites/default/files directory to lower environments unless you actively test media features. Stage file directories often contain years of orphaned assets that remain uncleaned.

Troubleshoot Database Storage

Database storage use increases mainly because of large tables, accumulated cache data, application logs stored in the database, excessive content revisions, retained database backups, binary logs, inefficient data models, or a lack of regular maintenance. The following section provides instructions to manage and reduce storage volumes:

• Identify large tables first: Surface the largest tables before you act.

• Truncate cache tables: Run Drupal cron periodically to manage the size of cache tables such as cache_form and cache_page.

• Clear the watchdog database log table: Truncate the watchdog table because the table becomes large if the application logs errors to the database instead of the file system. You must configure Syslog to route logs to the file system.

• Clean up revisions: Drupal stores a revision every time content updates. Use modules such as

  Node
  Revision Delete to safely bulk-delete outdated content revisions.

Additional Storage Options

Contact your Account Manager or Acquia Support to discuss right-sizing your storage entitlement to accommodate growth if the application genuinely requires additional storage capacity.