Understanding Disk Space quotas

Hi,

I'm trying to understand how the disk space quota works for resellers in WHM. As far as I can tell, mailbox quotas form part of the overall disk space limit. Firstly, is that right? If so, is there any way this can be changed?

My scenario is that I want to be able to sell disk space for web storage, and I don't want to provide loads by default because I don't want customers using their web space as a file store when they don't need to.

For example, I think 100 MB is more than enough to start with for web space.

However, as far as I can tell, the mailboxes with a domain also use the same disk space. As such, if that same customer had 20 mailboxes, each with (for instance) a 50 MB quota, then I need to raise the total disk space allocation to at least 1000 MB to cover the mailboxes, and an extra 100 MB for the original disk space.

But then there's nothing stopping the website file storage from gobbling up the whole 1100 MB of disk space.

This presents two problems (which I shouldn't need to spell out, but I will); Firstly, there's little point in enacting a 100 MB web space limit, because it includes mailbox capacity as well, and can just be used up willy-nilly. Secondly, any overuse of the disk space from website storage then reduces the capacity of the mailboxes.

However, here is my real world scenario: a customer with a 100 MB website storage limit, and a 2 GB single mailbox size limit. It's not possible, as far as I can tell.

Am I barking mad, or is that just the way it is?

Cheers!

Al,

 

Thanks for the reply. I see what you're saying, but what I'm suggesting is that cPanel know what the disk space quota is set to, and what each mailbox quota is set to. It already knows these figures, because I can set and see each of them already in cPanel.

What you're suggesting is that mailboxes should usually expect to have relatively small limits, and that the web space limit should be relatively large.

Given the ideal scenario currently, lets say I provide a customer with 2 GB of web space (seem fair?) and they have 10 mailboxes with 50 MB limits. So I need to assign a total of 2,500 MB disk space for them.

Lets say (all things staying legal) they have a 40 MB website, but start storing files on their web server, knowing they have a 2 GB limit. They get to 2 GB, and realise they haven't been limited yet. So they think they can keep going. They continue to store files until they do reach their limit. By which point, mailboxes become instantly full, even though they haven't reached their own 50 MB limits.

Then I have to contact the customer and explain that their mailboxes are full because they overused their web space quota, but there was no warning or limit because that's not how the system works - the space is shared with the mailboxes. And there never will be a warning or a limit, so just be careful and don't overuse your 2 GB allowance.

Unlikely, perhaps. Not ideal, certainly. It means without keeping an eye on each customers disk usage, neither we nor they will know if they're getting close to their 2 GB web space limit.

This doesn't get around the problem that the disk space allocation is per package, not per customer, and if I set it based on one customers web space plus mailbox total, it changes it for any other customers using the same package. The number of mailboxes in that instance are the governing factor as to the total limit. That almost makes packages pointless, because they're no longer reusable, instead each one is tailored to a customer. Unless I set up packages for the following:

2-gb_webspace-1_mailbox
2-gb_webspace-2_mailboxes
2-gb_webspace-3_mailboxes
2-gb_webspace-4_mailboxes
2-gb_webspace-5_mailboxes

etc.

If this seems like a lot of hassle and not worth it, then I suppose I could just create some packages with overall limits of 3 GB, 5 GB etc. But assuming my published web space limit is still 2 GB, and the remaining overhead is for mailboxes, this seems to negate the purpose of providing a disk space limit.

What seems to me to make most sense, is if the web space disk quota is set per package, and calculated as everything in the customers' account not including the mail directories. Then mailboxes can be added with individual quotas, and managed separately. Reporting will be accurate, package quotas will make more sense, and if hosts want to allocate a small amount of web space and a massive amount of mailbox space, they can. It would be 100% configurable.

What's more, backup would surely be no problem. The expected space required would be a total of the mailbox quotas plus the disk space quota. How does backup work at the moment if the disk space quota and mailboxes are set with no limits?

I presume this isn't the way you find most people configure their hosting packages? But nevertheless, I don't understand this unnecessary restriction.

Have I got totally the wrong end of the stick?