Mastodon administrators can access a content retention tool in the Mastodon web interface (Administration->Server Settings->Content Retention). This tool has three settings that impact storage usage: Media cache retention period This value is blank by default, so it never deletes the remote media cache.Still, all servers hosted by Masto.host have an automated cache deletion that will automatically delete the remote media … Read More
How is database disk space calculated on Masto.host?
The Mastodon database includes many PostgreSQL indexes. Indexes aim to make the database more responsive when performing queries against large data sets. There is a particularity with the way PostgreSQL indexes work. They do not release disk space once some data is deleted from a table. For example, let’s say you have a PostgreSQL database with 1000 records and a … Read More
Why is the database size smaller in backups?
Most databases need indexes. Indexes aim to make the database more responsive when performing queries against large data sets. In the case of the Mastodon database, many indexes are necessary to make Mastodon faster to retrieve data. The more indexes one creates, the more disk space is needed, even if the data on the database is the same. When generating … Read More