UK Dynamics 365 & PowerApps partner

My Dynamics 365 Storage is Out of Capacity, What Can I Do?

So, you’ve received an email from Microsoft with the subject “Immediate action required: Out of File/Database/Log capacity”.
What do you need to do?

You're out of database capacity

First of all, don’t panic.
You can continue to use your system as normal.

But that doesn’t mean you can ignore the message. It’s important to discover why you’re getting this message and what you can do to fix it.

Why is this happening?

Your Dynamics system stores three types of data, which Microsoft calculates separately:

  • Database – contains all your business data and definitions. Contacts, orders, accounts etc
  • Files – contains all your files like attachments, documents and images
  • Log – most actions you take (or automatic actions) are logged, for audit or reporting

As your system grows over time, these 3 stores will will get bigger and bigger…

What should I do first?

If you’re in charge of administering the system, you now have some choices:

If you’re not a system administrator, you should either

  • Contact your Dynamics supplier, or
  • Raise a support ticket with Microsoft

How do I view how much Dynamics storage space I’m using?

Go to the Power Platform Admin Centre and choose Resources > Capacity

Power Platform Admin Centre

Here you can view your use by

  • 1 Storage type (database, file or log)
  • 2 Environment (you may have more than one Dynamics environment – this is often a big drain on space and if you’re not using multiple environments, it’s an easy way to save space.
  • 3 Entitlement – what capacity was included with Dynamics and how much extra space was included with each user.

To find out what exactly is using the storage space, click the Dataverse tab

Storage use by environment

And click the graph icon in the Details column against each environment.

storage use by table (entity)

This page shows you the size of each underlying database table in all 3 of the stores. From this you can isolate which areas of the system are taking up most storage space

How to buy more storage space in Dynamics 365

If you have the Microsoft 365 Global or Billing admin roles, and you purchased Dynamics directly, you can buy more storage space.

  1. Go to Microsoft (Office) 365 admin centre
  2. From the menu, choose Billing > Purchase services
  3. Search for “Dataverse”
Buy Dataverse storage
  1. Click Details against the type of storage you need to expand (database, file or log)
  2. Then choose the licence quantity you need. Each licence represents 1GB of storage.

If you’re not able to buy extra storage separately, you should contact your reseller. You’ll most likely find that you can save money by deleting data first.

How much does Dynamics storage cost?

As of May 2024, in the UK, the storage prices are

 Monthly price (annual subscription)Monthly price (monthly subscription)
Database storage£32.90£39.48
File storage£1.64£1.97
Log file storage£8.20£9.84

How much storage space do I get with Dynamics?

StorageDefault StoragePer user storage
Database10 Gb250 MB/user
Files20 Gb2 GB/user
Logs2 Gb0

How to reduce Dynamics data storage

Deleting and removing data from your Dynamics system needs planning, as it’s easy to make a mistake and delete valuable business data. Restoring previously deleted data isn’t always easy, so plan and double check.

View our guides on how to reduce storage space in the three storage systems in Dynamics

Alternatively, a more complex solution is to move some of your data to a cheaper storage solution. This can be configured so that you can still ‘see’ your data in Dynamics, but you won’t be able to edit it, or there may be other restrictions. This involves some technical knowledge and uses virtual tables. Ask your supplier about your options.

What will happen if I don’t act now?

If you don’t take action you’ll find that Microsoft may disable some parts of your system (details here)

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📆 Last update: May 8, 2024

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