507 - Insufficient Storage
HTTP 507 Insufficient Storage means the server cannot store the representation needed to complete this request.
Last reviewed: February 24, 2026|Editorial standard: source-backed technical guidance
What Does Insufficient Storage Mean?
Write operations cannot be completed because storage required for representation persistence is unavailable, so mutations fail until capacity pressure is relieved.
Common Causes
- -WebDAV storage volume hits inode exhaustion even when byte utilization dashboards appear below capacity alerts.
- -Export workflow writes large intermediate artifacts to /tmp and exceeds container ephemeral storage quota.
- -Project storage quota for target class is exhausted, so backend denies additional object writes.
How to Fix Insufficient Storage
- 1Check writable capacity and quota boundaries on storage and temporary write volumes.
- 2Free or expand storage capacity and remove stale artifacts blocking writes.
- 3Retest write operations and verify sustained capacity headroom under expected load.
Step-by-Step Diagnosis for Insufficient Storage
- 1Capture capacity metrics and quota events on each layer in the write path (tmp, cache, object store, database volume).
- 2Identify whether hard quota, inode exhaustion, or transient staging-space pressure triggered 507.
- 3Inspect cleanup/retention jobs for lag, failures, or runaway artifact accumulation.
- 4Retest after reclaiming or scaling capacity and verify write-path durability under expected throughput.
Storage Layer and Quota Boundary Analysis
- -Pinpoint exact saturated layer (example: temp upload volume full even though object storage still has free quota).
- -Differentiate byte-capacity exhaustion from inode exhaustion (example: millions of tiny temp files consume inode table first).
Write Pipeline and Retention Workflow Audit
- -Trace intermediate artifacts in processing pipeline (example: image transcode stage writes large temp files not cleaned on failure).
- -Validate lifecycle cleanup and archival jobs (example: retention job paused, orphaned objects grow until quota breach).
Implementation Examples
curl -i -X PUT https://api.example.com/v1/uploads/asset-42 -H "Content-Type: application/octet-stream" --data-binary @large.bin
# Response:
# HTTP/1.1 507 Insufficient Storage
# {"error":"Insufficient Storage","code":"507"}const response = await fetch('https://api.example.com/v1/uploads/asset-42', {
method: 'PUT',
headers: { 'Accept': 'application/json', 'Content-Type': 'application/octet-stream' },
body: new Uint8Array([1, 2, 3])
});
if (response.status === 507) {
console.error('Handle 507 Insufficient Storage');
}import requests
response = requests.put(
'https://api.example.com/v1/uploads/asset-42',
headers={'Accept': 'application/json', 'Content-Type': 'application/octet-stream'},
data=b'example-binary'
)
if response.status_code == 507:
print('Handle 507 Insufficient Storage')How to Verify the Fix
- -Repeat affected write operations and confirm 507 no longer occurs across all storage tiers.
- -Validate free-space and quota headroom remain stable during realistic write bursts.
- -Monitor storage-related error budgets to confirm issue does not recur after cleanup/scale actions.
How to Prevent Recurrence
- -Set capacity alerts with early thresholds for writable storage and temporary volumes.
- -Automate lifecycle cleanup, retention enforcement, and orphaned-artifact removal.
- -Distribute write load and scale storage proactively for growth scenarios.
Pro Tip
- -monitor write amplification ratio (bytes written per successful request) to detect hidden temp-artifact growth before storage exhaustion.
Decision Support
Compare Guide
429 Too Many Requests vs 503 Service Unavailable
Use 429 for caller-specific throttling and 503 for service-wide outages, so retry behavior, escalation paths, and incident ownership stay correct.
Compare Guide
500 Internal Server Error vs 502 Bad Gateway: Root Cause
Debug 500 vs 502 faster: use 500 for origin failures and 502 for invalid upstream responses at gateways, then route incidents to the right team.
Playbook
API Timeout Playbook (502 / 504 / DEADLINE_EXCEEDED)
Use this playbook to separate invalid upstream responses from upstream wait expiration and deadline exhaustion, and apply timeout budgets, safe retries, and circuit-breaker controls safely.
Playbook
Availability and Dependency Playbook (500 / 503 / ServiceUnavailable)
Use this playbook to separate origin-side 500 failures from temporary 503 dependency or capacity outages, then apply safe retry and escalation paths.
Official References
Provider Context
This guidance is specific to HTTP services. Always validate implementation details against official provider documentation before deploying to production.