DiskSpaceLow

DiskSpaceLow is a condition in computer storage systems that occurs when the amount of free disk space on a storage device or volume falls below a configured threshold. It is a common signal used by operating systems, database servers, and monitoring tools to indicate an increased risk of storage shortage and potential service disruption.

Thresholds for DiskSpaceLow are configurable and can be specified as a percentage of total capacity or as a fixed amount of free space (for example, 10% or 100 MB). Thresholds may differ between volumes and can depend on workload, file sizes, and retention policies.

Detection and signaling: DiskSpaceLow can be detected by periodic file system checks, monitoring daemons, or application routines that query available space. In many systems, it manifests as an event, alert, or log entry with a severity level such as warning or critical.

Impacts: When DiskSpaceLow is reached, write operations may fail or be throttled, logs may stop rotating properly, and performance can degrade as the system spends more time managing limited space. In databases, auto-growth and temporary objects may be constrained, increasing the risk of failures.

Mitigation: Freeing space is the primary remedy, including deleting unnecessary files, compressing data, archiving, or moving data to another storage device. Other strategies include enabling automatic log rotation, reducing retention, upgrading storage capacity, and configuring alerts to trigger before thresholds are reached.

Related concepts include low disk space, disk usage, disk quotas, free space, and log management.