Every website needs adequate storage space on the servers that host it to ensure it performs well and doesn’t disappoint visitors.
Of course the storage requirements of a site will likely change and grow over time, so it is not enough to settle for the setup you have today; you need to plan ahead so that storage never becomes a bottleneck.
This is where implementing storage forecasting methods makes sense as part of the web design process, empowering you to track usage and project future needs so you can add capacity at the right intervals. So how can you go about this?
Use the right monitoring tools
Obviously, the easiest way to track out the trajectory of your shifting storage needs is to ensure that you are monitoring your web server with the right tools.
Modern server monitoring solutions are not just suited to scrutinizing storage metrics, but can also provide up to the minute information on all sorts of performance-related aspects of the technical underpinnings of your site.
When you first implement storage monitoring tools, you won’t be able to immediately get an accurate forecast, because of course the future projections are based on historic data. This means it could take a few months before you can get an accurate reading.
Even with this minor delay, the eventual benefits will be significant. Being able to review storage usage and be proactive in preparing to increase the space that is available, rather than suddenly stumbling across the upper limit without warning, will keep your site running smoothly and avoid unplanned downtime as well.
Embrace efficient design strategies
While the main reason to incorporate storage forecasting methods into your web design is to ensure that you can procure more capacity in a timely manner, there is another motivation behind this; you might want to look at historical storage use and plot future changes in order to determine whether your web design efforts need to be made more efficient.
Perhaps your site has become increasingly unwieldy without you realizing it, and this is slowly but surely chipping away at things like page load speed and responsiveness. Storage tracking tools can show you where issues are arising, and give you the impetus to implement optimizations.
So this doesn’t just have to be about knowing when you’ll need to upgrade your servers, but also about getting the evidence you need to justify trimming down components of the site to make it swifter and more agile.
Leverage custom alerts
Every website is unique, and this definitely applies to your storage needs as much as any other facet. So rather than settling for the default forecasting method, it pays to be sensitive to the specific requirements of your site, or the particular performance targets you want to hit and maintain.
This can be achieved with the customizable alerts which are incorporated as part of the aforementioned monitoring tools.
You can set parameters for when the alarm is raised, giving you as much time as you need to respond to storage capacity reaching critical levels. Whether you have an infrastructure which is flexible enough to accommodate storage changes in a matter of days, or whether you’d rather have weeks to play with, the choice is yours.
Wrapping up
Storage forecasting is just one part of building and maintaining a website, and yet the earlier you implement it, the quicker you will be able to take advantage of what it brings to the table.
If you aren’t using it already, now is the time to start, so you can build up the historic data that’s needed to provide precise predictions.