# How can I tell how much disk space might would be needed for an auto backup?

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-tell-how-much-disk-space-might-would-be-needed-for-an-auto-backup/158613
**Category:** Self-hosting
**Tags:** server-resources
**Created:** [23 juli 2020 om 12:53 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-tell-how-much-disk-space-might-would-be-needed-for-an-auto-backup/158613 "2020-07-23T12:53:44Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![pnoeric](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/pnoeric/32/177144_2.png) [@pnoeric](https://meta.discourse.org/u/pnoeric)
#### Post date: [23 juli 2020 om 12:53 UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/how-can-i-tell-how-much-disk-space-might-would-be-needed-for-an-auto-backup/158613/1 "2020-07-23T12:53:44Z")

</div>

My Discourse is set up to automatically back up to Amazon S3. However, I have learned ([the hard way](https://meta.discourse.org/t/disk-usage-spike-during-backup-discourse-crashed-hard/157675/19)) that it needs a lot of disk space on the local machine to _prepare_ the backup. It looks like the software prepares the backup on local server, then moves it to S3 and gets rid of the local work files. So there’s a moment there where disk use spikes and then the backup is shuffled off to Amazon and the local work files are deleted.

**How can I know how much workspace the backup process will need?** It doesn’t have to be exact, but right now, I am completely flying blind and this has already completely crashed my forums and taken them offline once before.