In plain English, an inode is just the value used to measure the total number of files and folders on your hosting account.
The files in various formats such as image, audio, video, blogs that are posted on the server occupy space. The data stored is measured in terms of the file system.
This file system is known as “inode”, in the hosting industry. So, the inode is simply the number that represents the uploaded content on the server of your hosting account.
Inode hosting (index node) is a form of data structure that contains information about the data stored on the server using your hosting account.
The inode is based on the Unix style file system having a search system as UFS. It also contains basic information like details of user’s sessions, permissions given to the files (read, write, execute), and also about the type of the files.
The inode keeps track of the detailed information about the data stored on the server and about the users. But it doesn’t refer to actual names of the files stored or the data content.
Unlimited inode hosting helps in finding the data content that you upload in your hosting account on the server.
What is an inode in web hosting?
Information about the files stored on the hosting account is in the form of inodes. It includes information about regular files and folders including blogs, emails, databases, system objects, and other related information stored in your account on the server.
Inode structure is designed in such a way to point out at the files, directories, and system objects which is part of actual content. In other words and inode represents a number that indicates the total number of files and folders available on the server.
The inode is the number that indicates the total number of system objects available on the server including regular files, directories, and the system files available on the hosting account.
Which hosting company would be best for Inodes Hosting?
The following web hosting companies provide a set of the basic level of inodes hosting as given in the list below:
#1. A2 Hosting – Basic: 600,000 inodes
#2. FastComet – Basic: 250,000 inodes
#3. TMDHosting – Basic: 300,000 inodes
#4. Bluehost – Basic: 150,000 inodes
#5. Hostgator – Basic: 250,000 inodes
#6. DreamHost – Basic: 600,000 inodes
#7. Chemicloud – Basic: 200,000 inodes
What Is The Minimum Acceptable Inodes Limit?
Depending on the frequent uploads on the website; the server can have inodes between 90000 and 150000 within 5-6 months. The inodes keep on increasing as the content on the website increases.
The uploaded content includes audio, video, and image file formats. The size of content also depends on the number of email accounts and the emails received every day. Initially, the blogs take minimum space but as it grows it takes more storage on the server.
The minimum acceptable inode limit mainly depends on the hosting plan, soft limit and hard limit offered. For the limited storage, the inode hosting has limited inodes i.e between 90,000 and 150,000. For the larger data storage, the inode limit can vary between 1 million and 2 million.
A good hosting plan can offer you hundreds of thousands of inodes per your hosting account. But your account may get suspended when you cross the specified inode limit.
Read the detailed article on Best Laravel Hosting in 2021
Shared Hosting Inode Limit
Shared hosting provides unlimited hosting to users. There are more accounts stored on the webserver. It will have unlimited hosting offers in terms of unlimited bandwidth, storage, and customized email accounts.
Web hosting companies put restrictions on the usage of storage space and the number of inodes. To offer better services it is necessary to keep the server clean and prevent it from storing a large number of Inodes.
Shared hosting plans offer better facilities and keep the inodes with minimum limitations and it is one of the advantages for the users. Shared WordPress hosting can have minimum Inodes limit which is the same as the shared hosting limit.
The three-level plans are given below:
- Entry-level inodes hosting plan: 100,000-200,000 inodes
- Middle plan inode hosting plan: 250,000-300,000 inodes
- Highest inode hosting plan: 400,000-600,000 inodes.
Managed WordPress Hosting Inode Limit
WordPress hosting is dependent on cPanel or Plesk and it doesn’t have any limit on the number of inodes to be stored. The companies offering WordPress hosting are highly flexible and allows a large number of files to be stored without any issue.
WordPress hosting services used with cPanel offers a higher inode limit which is similar to shared hosting.
Level inode hosting plans are defined as follows
- Entry-level inode hosting plan: 100,000-200,000 inodes
- Middle inode hosting plan: 250,000-300,000 inodes
- Highest inode hosting plan: 400,000-600,000 inodes
Inodes limit on VPS hosting plan
VPS hosting provides 10 times bigger inodes storing limitations than shared hosting. On VPS hosting you can have inodes limitations up to 1 M to 2 M in numbers.
While choosing VPS, if you get around 1 million inodes as a basic level plan then you better talk to the hosting company for a better deal and to get a higher number of inodes hosting. Make sure that you get unlimited inodes hosting in the VPS deal.
I have written a detailed article on Best Hostgator Alternative
Inodes limit on Dedicated Server
Dedicated servers do not have an inode limit at all. You can have the entire storage area of your server at your service and it can offer dedicated services. It offers unlimited inodes web hosting facilities.
Inodes on Cloud hosting
The inode limit for Cloud hosting mainly depends on the type of cloud service you have purchased. When cloud hosting is controlled by cPanel, it acts as shared hosting and you get a minimum inodes limit as given below.
- Entry-level inode hosting plan: 100,000-200,000 inodes
- Middle inode hosting plan: 250,000-300,000 inodes
- Highest inode hosting plan: 400,000-600,000 inodes.
But for a fully customized Cloud hosting plan that is based on the preferred operating system (CentOS, Ubuntu, Debian, etc.) and offers various useful techniques. Here unlimited inodes web hosting provides customized Cloud hosting features that offer unlimited memory, storage, and other required facilities.
What happens when the inode is 100% utilized?
The inode limit defined is of two types – Soft limit and a hard limit. The soft limit is of 100 k & the hard limit is of 250 k. The limits are defined for shared as well as for the reseller accounts. The inode limit plays an important role while uploading the content on the server.
If the soft limit gets over, you can still upload the files on the server but if the hard limit gets over by 100% then, you cannot upload any files on the server and your account on the server gets blocked. Even it will stop your email facilities.
The processes for making daily, weekly or monthly backups will also be stopped, once the inode count reaches over the limit.
How to check inode usage in your account?
To check the inode usage in your account, you have to log in to the account on the server. The options file manager will display the list of files, directories, and system files stored on the server along with the details of the disk space.
You can find the used space of the disk and also the space available on the disk. The disk space used and available will give you a clear idea about the inode usage in your account.
How to check Inode in your Hosting account?
- Log in to your Cpanel with username and password
- In the Right-hand side, you will get to see a section called as Statistics (See below screenshot.)
This way you can see the Inodes provided by the hosting company for your hosting plan. In the above screenshot, you can see 100,000 is the limit and 11,063 inodes have been utilized till now.
How to reduce inodes using cPanel?
To reduce inodes you need to clean your hosting account. You should follow the given steps:
To remove unnecessary files and folders
Log in to your account on the server, choose the File manager option using cPanel, select the unwanted files and delete them.
To remove cache files
WordPress, Joomla, Drupal, and many other CMS packages often make use of storage space by storing a large number of cache files.
The cache files are used to improve their performance while working on the website. Deleting such highly used cache files will free a large number of inodes.
Delete older backups
Backups always take user space on the disk and it also uses inodes in large numbers. The backup files always occupy a lot of space on the server and it increases the count of inodes.
The procedure for the backup will be stopped once the limit of inodes is crossed. The backup procedure will use only the database and not static files.
If you want to read a detailed info Read, the article How to Clear Inodes in Cpanel?
Conclusion:
The web hosting offers you various configurations that are mainly dependent on the hosting plans that you chose. But when it comes to storage capacity, inode hosting plays an important role in enhancing the server performance.
You have to keep the inode limitations under control and it will help in making more storage space available on the server. Every hosting plan offers you a set of inodes at different levels such as Entry level, Middle Level, and Highest level and it helps you in creating the space on the server.
Inode hosting is highly effective in web hosting and it needs to be used very effectively to get the best results.