Disc is full

Disc is full

by YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL -
Number of replies: 12

I am using moodle 3.9.

I am unable to increase storage space . My server is having the storage of 120GB. 

Around 1200 students are working and submitting the assignment in the form of images 

Please give me a solution. Remember I am just a Math teacher


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In reply to YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL

Re: Disc is full

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Let's see...

Let a = number of students, let b = number of pictures per student, c = average size of the picture, and g = size of the server.

Then, if a * b * c > g, you have a problem.

So, you need to reduce either a, b, or c, or increase g.

  1. Why can you not increase g?  One might say that you have not calculated your needs appropriately, and that you undersized your server, based upon what you want to do.
  2. I assume that you cannot decrease a, that a is outside of your control.
  3. Decreasing b is possible, but you would need to scale back on how many pictures you allow.  In some Moodle activities, like forums, you can set a limit to the number of attachments.  You also have to ask yourself if students are over-submitting, by exploring what they are submitting.  This could take some t, where t = time.
  4. c is an interesting variable.  If students are submitting photos from their smartphones, these photos are probably much larger than what is needed for the assignment.  But getting students to learn how to reduce photo sizes, or even picture sizes, is challenging.  There are settings in Moodle and in some Moodle activities to control the maximum upload size, which might help.

Of course, if your server is already full, you need to either increase g, or clean out (i.e., remove) what students have submitted.  When you do this, you will be losing the "history" of what students did, but that is "history" and not "math," and it is that math that might be bothering you more than the "history."

Increasing g, I suggest, is the best solution.  My guess is that increasing g contains another variable, "d."  d represents dollars.  And probably g * d > i, where i represents income.

There may be ways to delete student submittals, but I am not sure how easy this would be.  Maybe others here can provide a simple "solution."  My estimate is that t might be too large, and that you probably want to minimize this t variable.

Sorry that I cannot be of much more help, but perhaps I have given you some ideas.
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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Disc is full

by YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL -
Dear Rick Jerz,
I think , you are also a math teacher. Best analysis.
1. Actually , when we start the moodle in lockdown period, we did not expect the response from the students, at that time our storage capacity is just 64GB. So we have increased to 120GB. But in two months , free space is almost zero
2. We have given awareness to submit the images of smaller size, but somehow it did not work more than 50%
3. As our assessment system needs pen and paper test, students need to submit the images.
4. Yes, we do not need the assignment files submitted by the students after a month. Can you suggest a method, to delete all the assignment files submitted by the students after a certain period.
Thank you for giving the analysis. Definitely I will work on c and g.
waiting for your reply
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In reply to YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL

Re: Disc is full

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers

I am glad that you enjoyed my reply.  I am worse than a math teacher, I am an engineer! 😀

#1. This is good news that your moodle is being used, a lot (too much) by students.  Your school should take this as an encouragement to increase capacity again.  (Many years ago, I was involved in a new networking system, around 1988, with the John Deere Technical Center in Moline.  We wanted our new network to have plenty of space, so we purchased a 500MB hard disk, thinking it would last 5 years.  Well, as you probably know, in less than a year we were out of space.  We added a 1GB hard drive, which cost only $5,000 US.  It was good news to learn that our new Novell NetWare network was being used.)

#3.  I hope that you are not saying that students scan their "paper" exams and submit them.  If so, time to convert to Moodle quizzes.

#4.  I know that this has been asked for by others, but I don't know what solutions have been provided.  Uploaded "Assignments" can always be downloaded and moved to some external storage device, but I am not sure how to delete these assignments after downloading them.  (Maybe Ken will know.)


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In reply to YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL

Re: Disc is full

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

There are alternatives ... see you have a gmail.com address. 

What of your students?  

IF your students have Google accounts, they also have access to Google Drive - 10 gigs of space me thinks. 

Alternative for Assignments where students are uploading files to your moodle is online assignment.   You, as 'just a Math Teacher', describe the assignment with the requirement that students, do whatever in Google and then provide a link to that document or folder for all their 'homework' back to you with permissions to annotate/control/edit the 'homework' doc/folder/image.

Space issue resolved.

You might qualify:

https://support.google.com/a/answer/134628?hl=en

https://support.google.com/a/answer/139019?hl=en

https://sites.google.com/site/toolsforeducators/Home/create-google-accounts-for-students

'SoS', Ken

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In reply to YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL

Re: Disc is full

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Don't wait till Moodle won't respond because no space is left. That is the worst you can do for an application. Such a crash will leave Moodle in an unstable state. If you see it coming, set Moodle to maintenance mode.

BTW, how do you backup Moodle and save a copy off-site?
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In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera

Re: Disc is full

by YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL -

Dear Visvanath, 

I did the same sir. I have put the site in maintenance mode, and I have deleted a backup file of around 3gb from moodledata/Temp/ backup from the server. So at present our site is on. But still my site is in danger.  If I delete complete Temp folder , will it harm my site ? Will it increase my disc space?

Pl suggest a method to delete the data. I do not want assignment files submitted by the students as we have already marked. We want only grade book. 

Ravishankar 

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In reply to YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL

Re: Disc is full

by Ken Task -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers

If having a space issue creating a full user backup of a course, which would include all users,grades, and files they have uploaded for assignments would be included in that backup.

Anything in moodledata/temp/backup/ can be manually removed without major consequence to the functioning of Moodle.

Deleting assignments ... would mean grades have also be deleted ... soooooo ...

Have already given what I think to be your solution ... Google - online assignments where a URL is shared.

I see that Rick's responses are the only ones you've rated useful ... so I guess Rick will be your primary support for this issue.

I see PUBLIC SCHOOL in name ... so what does that mean?

'SoS', Ken

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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Disc is full

by Rick Jerz -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Testers
Well, Ken, since I mention your name in my post, you are in on this too! 😀

Actually, the reason why I mention your name is that I thought I recalled you running into this issue, either yourself or as you were helping others.

This "space" problem has been around forever, both due to the required server size, and due to the cost.  I even remember Bob Puffer, from Luther, giving a presentation at a Moodlemoot nearly 7 years ago about how he was developing an API, or something like that, so that GoogleDocs could be seamlessly integrated into Moodle.

The OP seems to have two problems: 1) getting rid of what is already on the server, and 2) preventing an over-capacity situation from occurring again.

For 1, I know that we get questions like this, often when big videos have been uploaded, about how to go into the moodledata folder and remove the big video.  I don't pay attention to possible solutions because I am careful not to do this on my Moodle.

For 2, one can use some of the "upload" Moodle restriction settings, buy more server space, or use your suggestion to try to use some of the "free" storage solutions.  

(I will fix that "rating" issue in just a moment.  😍  Your help is always appreciated, Ken.)

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In reply to Rick Jerz

Re: Disc is full

by Ken Task -
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Fixing 'useful' ... no, was not begging to have my postings marked as useful by anyone.   They are only useful to the op that posted the problem/question.

I don't look at this as an issue of 'math'/space but one of method.

Requirement to have 'paper' ... and 'don't need to retain' ...

With those 2 can think of nothing better than Google Drive/Docs which solves both.

Math teachers have always been the hardest to support in moodle, IMHO, due to math editors.

I do know that if an assignment is removed from a course so are the associated grades.

That, if assignment is massive, also creates another 'space issue' in that moodle now uses recyclebin ... something deleted ... a backup is made of it ... in case teacher didn't mean to delete.

Op kinda hinted at that by asking what would happen if op removed files from moodledata/temp/backup/

Soooo ... outta here! smile

Good luck!

'SoS'. Ken


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In reply to Ken Task

Re: Disc is full

by Rick Jerz -
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Your posts have been useful to me, too! I always learn something new.
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In reply to YASHODHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL

Re: Disc is full

by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Translators
Dear Ravishankar

I understand you being alarmed that the server will run out of space and crash the Moodle site irreparably. But first things first. Even without considering this danger many things can go wrong in a machine, with or without running 24x7 on-line. So do you have a scheme for taking regular site backups https://docs.moodle.org/39/en/Site_backup and copying them off-site? I asked that already, got no answer.

Second thing, before applying any treatment you must know for sure whether this growth is genuine or not. Unfortunately the file storage of Moodle is behind a mystery, so that the casual administrator can't see what is happening behind the scene. You have to do the maths: look at sample file submissions, find the average size, multiply by the number of courses and their candidates times the number of exercises per year.

Depending on the answer, the helpers can tell you how to dig further.
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