Disk Space Requirements
In general, when estimating the amount of additional disk space to allocate for Tableau Server for day-to-day usage, you must consider whether or not extracts will be published to Tableau Server, and consider the number of workbooks that you expect to publish to Tableau Server . If you anticipate using extracts, Tableau recommends that you begin with a few hundred gigabytes (GB). If you do not anticipate using extracts, you may only need around 50 GB to fulfill your usage needs. To setup drive space alerts, see Configure Server Event Notification(Link opens in a new window).
Looking for Tableau Server on Linux? See Disk Space Requirements(Link opens in a new window).
It is critical for Tableau Server to have adequate disk space. If you run out of disk space on any node in a Tableau Server installation, you can experience erratic performance, including not being able to access Tableau Server or the TSM Web UI. For troubleshooting steps, see
Here are the factors that affect disk space requirements and where you might choose to install Tableau Server:
Drive size and type of partition
The type of partition used on your Tableau Server drive can impact the amount of space available to your Tableau Server installation.
- Master Boot Record (MBR) partitions support partitions and hard drives up to 2 terabytes (2T) and can be used on boot drives.
- GUID partition table (GPT) partitioning support partitions and hard drives up to 18 exabytes in size but cannot be used on boot drives. These are a good choice when installing Tableau Server on an additional drive because they provide for so much disk space, allowing enterprises to scale up over time.
Publishing extracts to Tableau Server
Consider the number of extracts that will be published to Tableau Server and the size of each extract. Test your needs by publishing several extracts to Tableau Server and then checking the disk space used. You can use this amount of disk space to help you figure out how many extracts will be published to Tableau Server over time as well as how each existing extract will increase in size.
Refreshing extracts
Consider the space needed by the temp directory during an extract refresh. The temp directory, which is where an extract is stored to during a refresh, may require up to three times the final file size of the extract.
Creating many workbooks
If using workbooks, consider the number of workbooks that will be published to Tableau Server. Individual workbooks tend to take up a small amount of disk space. However, if you anticipate thousands of workbooks being published, you may want to allocate additional disk space to accommodate those workbooks.
Logging
To assist with daily management and troubleshooting, Tableau Server creates log files as a part of its normal operations. Depending on the level at which the logging is configured, it can significantly impact the amount of disk space necessary on the Tableau Server computer.
Backup and restore processes
The free disk space required to create a backup varies depending on the amount of data in the Tableau Server repository and file store services, and their collocation with the tabadmincontroller service. During backups, the background tasks for cleaning up old extracts are temporarily paused. This means that, for the duration of the backup, extract refreshes will leave extra files in place, adding to disk space usage. If your backup takes a long time, or if your organisation uses many extracts that are regularly updated, this can result in a significant amount of temporary disk space usage. These temporary files will be removed after the backup is complete.
The following table lists the disk space requirements for backup based on whether the node hosts the repository, file store, controller or some combination of them. In multi-node Tableau Server environments, you need to estimate the required disk space on each node.
| Repository | File Store | Controller | Disk Space Required |
|---|---|---|---|
 | 3x repository data + 250 MB To obtain an estimate of the repository data, check the size of To obtain the exact size of the repository data, open the backup file and use the size of the workgroup.pg_dump file. | ||
| 1.5x file store data To obtain an estimate of file store data (extracts, flows, etc.), check the size of | ||
| 3x repository data + 250 MB + 2.5x file store data | ||
| | 3x repository data + 250 MB + 1.5x file store data | |
| | 3x repository data + 250 MB + 1.5x file store data | |
| | 3x repository data + 250 MB + 2.5x file store data | |
| | | 3x repository data + 250 MB + 1.5x file store data |
Restore disk space requirements
You must have adequate disk space for the database restore process to run successfully.
To restore Tableau Server:
On controller nodes, you need free space equal to at least the size of the backup archive.
On repository nodes, you need free space equal to at least three times the size of the repository data in the backup archive, plus 250 MB, plus the size of the pgsql data directory.
On file store nodes, you need free space equal to at least twice the size of the dataengine folder in the backup archive.
Site Export and Import
Site exports and imports require adequate disk space, just as backup and restore processes do. At a minimum, you must have enough space for the exported file. You can use the requirements for Backup and Restore as a guideline for the amount of disk space necessary when doing site exports and imports.
The export file is generated to the directory defined in the TSM basefilepath.site_export.exports variable. For additional details, see tsm sites export.
For more information about file paths and how to change them, see tsm File Paths.