How to manage device storage and prevent your monthly bill from bloating?

Ways to limit the volume of data stored in devices and assigned devices.

Flespi devices collect, save, and store all messages with a particular ident (IMEI). If a tracker actively sends messages (e.g. every 5 seconds), the volume of stored messages in the device storage can grow rapidly. This can lead to the following consequences:

  • run out of space — even though device storage for a commercial account is limited to a substantial 10GB, you’d better keep an eye on it to avoid losing messages.

  • incur unnecessary expenses — each additional GB of stored data after the first GB will cost you an extra €1/month. It’s totally OK to store data in flespi for up to 10 years but if you were not planning that, you should take care of all the incoming messages in a timely manner.

Note: the same is true for devices assigned to calculators (aka assigned devices) — they can also hold up to 10GB of calculated intervals.

So, what you can do to use device storage efficiently and not overpay:

  • Messages TTL — adjust the value of this parameter in device configuration so that you don’t store the old data that you don’t need. The default value is 365 days. If set to 0, messages will not be saved. If you store data in your system we suggest to keep device messages in flespi for at least 30 days for data backup and device troubleshooting purposes.

  • Messages rotation size — the max size of stored messages in KB. You set it to a smaller value than the allowed device storage (10GB) to avoid accidental bloating. When reached, the device storage will be rotated (the oldest messages will be deleted freeing up space for the new ones). If you store data in your system we suggest to keep at least last 100 MB of device messages in flespi for data backup and device troubleshooting purposes.

  • Media files TTL — adjust the value of this parameter in device configuration so that you don’t store the old device media data (pictures, video, etc) that you don’t need. The default value is 365 days and minimum is 1 day. This parameter does not affects files marked as protected which should be removed only by intention. Links to media files not marked as protected and out of this period will be unavailable and return 404. We recommend to set this value at least to 30 days for data backup and device troubleshooting purposes.

  • Media files rotation size — the max size of stored device media files in KB. You set it to a smaller value than the allowed device media storage (10GB) to avoid accidental bloating. When reached, unprotected files on the device media storage will be rotated (the oldest files will be deleted freeing up space for the new ones). This parameter does not affects files marked as protected which should be removed only by intention. As device media storage is used by live video streaming services we suggest do not set media rotation size below 1 GB.

    messages ttl and messages rotation size flespi device

  • Intervals TTL — same as messages_ttl but for intervals stored in assigned devices. Can be set up in a calculator configuration.
  • Intervals rotation size — same as Messages rotation size but for intervals stored in assigned devices. Can be set up in a calculator configuration. intervals ttl in flespi calculators


Non-billed logs and traffic storage

We do not charge you for logs and traffic, however this data has non-expandable limits. Logs storage is limited with 3Gb per device up to 1 year. Traffic storage is limited with 8Mb per device up to 300 days (whatever happens first) with overall 10Gb of traffic per channel.


See also
Apply webhooks to events from calculators to invoke your lambda upon an aggregated event happened to the device
A comprehensive overview of video telematics functionality integration into your application with flespi.