# Work around "Storage server running out of space (approaching 5% limit)" on your developer machine

**URL:** <https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/work-around-storage-server-running-out-of-space-approaching-5-limit-on-your-developer-machine/1814>\
**Category:** Using FoundationDB\
**Created:** [December 5, 2019, 3:08pm UTC](https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/work-around-storage-server-running-out-of-space-approaching-5-limit-on-your-developer-machine/1814 "2019-12-05T15:08:00Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KrzysFR](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/foundationdb/user_avatar/forums.foundationdb.org/krzysfr/32/43_2.png) [@KrzysFR](https://forums.foundationdb.org/u/KrzysFR)\
**Post date:** [December 5, 2019, 3:08pm UTC](https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/work-around-storage-server-running-out-of-space-approaching-5-limit-on-your-developer-machine/1814/1 "2019-12-05T15:08:00Z")

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This one hits me regularly enough, so here is a quick tip if you are using fdb locally on your dev machine, which is running perpetually in a low free disk space state (less than 5% of the total capacity).

```nohighlight
Using cluster file `C:\ProgramData\foundationdb\fdb.cluster'.

The database is available, but has issues (type 'status' for more information).

Welcome to the fdbcli. For help, type `help'.
fdb> status

WARNING: Long delay (Ctrl-C to interrupt)

Using cluster file `C:\ProgramData\foundationdb\fdb.cluster'.

Unable to start default priority transaction after 5 seconds.

Unable to start batch priority transaction after 5 seconds.

Unable to retrieve all status information.
...
Workload:
  Read rate - 4 Hz
  Write rate - 0 Hz
  Transactions started - 2 Hz
  Transactions committed - 0 Hz
  Conflict rate - 0 Hz
  Performance limited by server 208cfdeba9ddbf45: Storage server running out of space (approaching 5% limit).

```

The fdbserver is refusing to start new transactions as long as you are below 5% freespace by default. If you have 500GB/1TB ssd drive, this means that it triggers under 25GB/50GB free space.

You can work around this by changing a knob in your `foundationdb.conf` file to lower the threshold (to something low, like 0.1%).

**DON’T DO THIS IN PRODUCTION** _(unless you know what you are doing!)_

Simply edit `foundationdb.conf` and add a `knob_min_free_space_ratio` entry in the `[fdbserver]` section:

```auto
...
## Default parameters for individual fdbserver processes
[fdbserver]
public_address = auto:$ID
listen_address = public
parentpid = $PID
command=...
datadir=...
logdir=...
knob_min_free_space_ratio=0.001

```

Simply saving the file should restart your fdbserver process, and unblock you for good, or at least until you dip down below less than 500MB free space total.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![dimi](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/foundationdb/user_avatar/forums.foundationdb.org/dimi/32/879_2.png) [@dimi](https://forums.foundationdb.org/u/dimi)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2020, 2:13am UTC](https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/work-around-storage-server-running-out-of-space-approaching-5-limit-on-your-developer-machine/1814/2 "2020-06-07T02:13:36Z")

</div>

> [@KrzysFR](#):
>
> knob\_min\_free\_space\_ratio

The knob now seems to be `knob_min_available_space_ratio`

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![KrzysFR](https://sea1.discourse-cdn.com/foundationdb/user_avatar/forums.foundationdb.org/krzysfr/32/43_2.png) [@KrzysFR](https://forums.foundationdb.org/u/KrzysFR)\
**Post date:** [June 7, 2020, 8:44am UTC](https://forums.foundationdb.org/t/work-around-storage-server-running-out-of-space-approaching-5-limit-on-your-developer-machine/1814/3 "2020-06-07T08:44:21Z")

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It was indeed changed [recently](https://github.com/apple/foundationdb/commit/08914a2acdd11c9f185186d3122d70de06231bfa) and looking at the git timeline, it looks like it was done starting in v6.2.16.

I did not see any issue on my machine because in the mean time I added dedicated drives using one of these [puppies](https://www.anandtech.com/show/12987/msi-four-way-m2-pcie-card-it-looks-like-a-gpu) and moved the data files out of my main partition.

Unfortunately, I cannot edit the original message!

So from 6.2.16 and up, it should look like:

```auto
...
## Default parameters for individual fdbserver processes
[fdbserver]
public_address = auto:$ID
listen_address = public
parentpid = $PID
command=...
datadir=...
logdir=...
knob_min_available_space_ratio=0.001

```

And again, it should only be done on a local development machine, NOT on production servers because it could impact how replication works!