---
checkId: check.storage.diskspace
plugin: stellaops.doctor.storage
severity: fail
tags: [storage, disk, capacity, core]
---
# Disk Space Availability

## What It Checks
Verifies disk space availability on drives used by Stella Ops. The check:

- Identifies paths to check from `Storage:DataPath`, `EvidenceLocker:Path`, `Backup:Path`, and `Logging:Path` configuration (falls back to platform defaults: `/var/lib/stellaops` on Linux, `%ProgramData%\StellaOps` on Windows).
- Gets the drive info for each path and calculates usage ratio.
- **Fails at 90%+ usage** (critical threshold) -- the system is at immediate risk of running out of space.
- **Warns at 80%+ usage** (warning threshold) -- approaching capacity.
- Reports the most critically used drive.

## Why It Matters
Disk exhaustion causes cascading failures: database writes fail, evidence cannot be stored, log rotation breaks, and container operations halt. This is a severity-fail check because disk exhaustion can cause data loss and service outages that are difficult to recover from.

## Common Causes
- Log files accumulating without rotation
- Evidence artifacts consuming space
- Backup files not rotated or pruned
- Large container images cached on disk
- Normal data growth approaching provisioned capacity

## How to Fix

### Docker Compose
```bash
# Check disk usage
docker exec <platform-container> df -h

# Cleanup old logs
stella storage cleanup --logs --older-than 7d

# Prune Docker resources
docker system prune -a
docker volume prune
```

### Bare Metal / systemd
```bash
# Find large files
du -sh /var/lib/stellaops/* | sort -rh | head -20

# Cleanup logs
stella storage cleanup --logs --older-than 7d

# Cleanup temporary files
stella storage cleanup --temp

# Review Docker disk usage
docker system df
```

### Kubernetes / Helm
```bash
# Check PV usage
kubectl get pv
kubectl exec -it <platform-pod> -- df -h

# Expand PVC if needed
kubectl edit pvc stellaops-data  # increase storage request
```

Consider setting up automated cleanup policies:
```yaml
storage:
  cleanup:
    enabled: true
    logRetentionDays: 30
    tempCleanupSchedule: "0 4 * * *"
```

## Verification
```
stella doctor run --check check.storage.diskspace
```

## Related Checks
- `check.storage.backup` — verifies backup directory accessibility
- `check.storage.evidencelocker` — verifies evidence locker write access