Disk Space

Allocating Disk Space

Quotas
Disk space in H-Sphere is allocated to customers through quotas, which are set separately for:

• user's home directory on the web server
• each user mailbox
• each user database

Quotas are obligatory plan resources and can't be disabled. Customers can't upload and store more MB than the resource quota allows (except for My/Pg SQL DBs) and will get an error message if they try to do so. If end users need to upload more MB than their resource quota allows, they can increase it. To keep users from increasing resource quota, it can be MAX restricted. This is done

• in versions before 3.1, by editing existing plans with the resources control
• in version 3.1 and up, directly in plan edit wizards

All files with the owner's ID including those outside user's home directory (e.g. Transfer, Referrer, Agent and Error logs that are used for user website statistics) are counted toward used disk space. That's why quota usage may be different from the size of the user home directory.

Important: when creating a plan for MS SQL DB's service, don't set MS SQL quota of 0MB, as just created MS SQL databases already contain system information of 2MB (for MSSQ 2000) or 3MB (for MSSQ 2005) of disk space!

Summary Disk Usage
Every 24 hours a cron script scans end user's FTP home directory, all mailboxes, and DBs to summarize the disk space and make up summary disk usage for the last day. Summary readings of each daily scan are added up and divided by days elapsed from the beginning of the billing month. The resulting amount makes up user's average summary disk usage.

Charging Users for Disk Space

There are two approaches to charge customers for disk space. To avoid double billing, don't use both of them in the same plan.

• Charging for Increased Quotas
  Set free units and recurrent prices for quotas. If end users need to upload more MB than free quota allows, they have to increase it.
  • When they increase FTP, mailbox and MS SQL quotas they will be charged recurrent fee for billing period resources.
  • When they increase My/PG SQL DB quotas they will be they will be charged recurrent fee for monthly resources.
  
  Important:
  Unlike FTP/Mailbox/MS SQL db quotas, My/PG SQL db quotas can be exceeded.
  If by the end of the month users exceed their My/PG SQL db quotas, they are charged usage (overlimit) fees.


• Charging for Increased and/or Exceeded Summary Disk Usage Limit
  Enable the summary disk usage resource and set free units, recurrent and extra prices for it. Summary disk usage free units make up user's initial summary disk usage limit. If by the end of billing month user's average summary disk usage exceeds it, they will be charged usage (overlimit) fees. To prevent it, users can increase their summary disk usage limit (unless it is MAX restricted) and be charged recurrent fee for monthly resources which is usually less than usage (overlimit) fees.

Customers are not refunded if they haven't used up all the reserved disk space.
If customers reduce prepaid quotas or summary disk usage limit, they are refunded.

Enabling/Disabling Summary Disk Usage