How Much Disk Space Does Joomla Need?

If you are on a shared hosting plan that restricts you to a specific amount of hard disk space, then you might be wondering how much disk space does Joomla need to see if your hosting plan can accommodate it. Fear not, Joomla (core Joomla – with no extensions installed) is lightweight, so it has a very small footprint on the server.

Here’s how much disk space the two main versions of Joomla need:

• Joomla 1.5.25: If it’s in zipped mode, then it takes 6.73 MB (Megabytes), if you extract it, then it will take about 27 MB. Note that its real size is 14.7 MB, but the number of files, which is about 4,206, will increase its footprint to 27 MB. In other words, you will need 27 MB of free space on your server to accommodate the Joomla 1.5.25 core.

• Joomla 1.7.3: If it’s in zipped mode, then it takes 7.03 MB, if you extract it, then it will take about 29 MB. Again, the real size is 16.4 MB, but since Joomla 1.7.3 has 4,411 files, then you will need 29 MB on your server’s disk to accommodate it.

Now, of course, the above numbers are for fresh Joomla installations, and we haven’t also taken into consideration the size of the Joomla database, which is about 1 MB for, again, a fresh install.

Now, does that mean you can run a Joomla website if you only have 30 MB of free hard disk on your server? Possibly, but not for long. Here’s why:

• Your website will generate an error log and it will also generate statistics. Both of them will increase your hard disk requirements.

• You will probably install a non-standard template (a template that does not exist in the Joomla core) that may take many megabytes.

• You (and your users) will add data to your website. This data might be images or it might be just text entered into the database. Again, this will increase your hard disk requirements.

• You will most likely install extensions, and there are many extensions that are huge in size, often larger than Joomla’s own size.

So, now that we have mentioned the above, how much disk space does Joomla really need?

In our experience, you will need at least 500 MB for Joomla. We have seen Joomla websites that span tens of GB (Gigabytes – Every gigabyte is 1024 megabytes), and these websites did not contain any videos. Joomla websites that contain videos can be up to 100 GB in size (note that the size of a Joomla website can be infinity or ?).

If you need help installing Joomla, then we can certainly help you. Just contact us and you’ll see how friendly and efficient we are. Our fees are also very reasonable!