Your Salesforce production org can only hold so much data and, once it reaches capacity, the platform will become increasingly slow and unresponsive. Sooner or later you’ll face a big decision; pay Salesforce thousands of dollars a month for more storage and deal with the issue again in a few years’ time, or find another solution to free up space and optimize performance — long term.
In this blog post we’ll look at how Salesforce storage works, the costs involved and how Gearset can be the long term solution you’re looking for.
Salesforce data storage types
Salesforce holds a huge amount of information. The storage of this information is broken up into these three different types:
- Data storage holds structured records from standard and custom objects — Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Cases, and other object records. Storage is allocated per organization and expands based on the number of user licenses.
- File storage covers unstructured content including attachments, Salesforce Files, Chatter files, documents, email attachments, images, and other uploaded files. It includes a base allocation per organization and additional space per user license.
- Big Objects storage is optimized for massive datasets used for long-term archiving and high-volume data access at low cost. Big Objects can handle billions of records with minimal performance impact and don’t count against standard data storage limits. They do come with query restrictions, though — you can only access them via SOQL using specific indexed fields. This makes them best suited for archival use cases rather than active operations.
TDX
How is Salesforce storage calculated?
Storage in Salesforce is calculated differently depending on your Salesforce edition. For data, most editions come with 10GB of storage with 20MB for each user license (so if there are 10 users in one org, it will have a limit of 10.2GB). File storage also has the default 10GB allowance but with either 612MB or 2GB per user depending on which license you have.
| Salesforce Edition | Data Storage | Data Storage Allocation per User License | File Storage Allocation per Org | File Allocation per User License |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | 10GB | None | 1GB | None |
| Professional | 10GB | 20MB | 10GB | 612MB |
| Enterprise | 10GB | 20MB | 10GB | 2GB |
| Unlimited | 10GB | 120MB* | 10GB | 2GB |
*Lightning Platform Starter User Licenses receive 20MB per user instead of 120MB
For example, a Professional Edition org with 10 users receives 10GB + 200MB (10 × 20MB), for a total of 10.2GB. Big Objects come with enough space for 1 million records per org.
How to check your Salesforce storage limit in your org
You can see a breakdown of your current Salesforce data and file storage usage by navigating to Setup → Storage Usage. Or you can search for it in the Quick Find box, then click Storage Usage.
The Storage Usage page shows you how much data and file storage your org has available, how much you’ve used, and what’s consuming it. You’ll see totals for data and file storage, usage by record type, user-level breakdowns, and your largest files and records — click any username to see exactly what data that person is storing.
What happens if you go over your data storage limit in Salesforce?
What happens when you exceed your storage limit depends on your environment.
Production orgs
In production orgs, Salesforce doesn’t strictly enforce storage limits to avoid blocking business-critical operations. When you exceed your limit, you’ll see warning messages like STORAGE_LIMIT_EXCEEDED or data storage limits exceeded, but your org continues to function. But these warnings indicate contractual overages, and you’ll need to purchase additional storage through your Account team or reduce usage to avoid performance issues. Salesforce Support can’t increase production storage limits directly.
If your storage grows significantly beyond your allocation, operations may eventually be restricted:
- Users can’t create or edit records
- File uploads stop entirely
- System performance degrades — reports, dashboards, queries, and searches slow down
- Errors appear across the org, interrupting workflows
- Automations and integrations may fail, including API calls and background processes
Sandbox orgs
For sandbox orgs, limits are strictly enforced. When you exceed either data or file storage, record saves and file uploads are immediately blocked — even if the other storage type is under its limit. Because data and file storage are calculated separately, having extra space in one won’t help if you exceed the limit in the other.
Can you buy more storage space?
Yes, Salesforce lets you purchase additional storage in fixed blocks. But these add-ons don’t come cheap, and if your organization creates large volumes of records daily, you might find the upgrade doesn’t last long — you could need more storage within months, and costs quickly add up as your data grows.
*This Salesforce pricing is a rough guide and prices can vary depending on your Salesforce edition.
How to reduce your Salesforce data storage costs
There are a few different ways to reduce the costs of data storage:
Categorize and delete unnecessary data
Categorizing and deleting unnecessary data frees up storage by removing outdated records, unused attachments, and duplicate files.
Much of the data being stored in your Salesforce environment is likely no longer needed for your day-to-day operations and may never be used again. Categorizing your data can help to identify all the outdated records, attachments and duplicate files that can be removed. You can do this by using record types or by optimizing your custom settings.
Once your data is categorized, you can delete the unnecessary data — either manually or automatically.
Manual deletion lets you select unwanted records and delete them directly. Salesforce also provides a Mass Delete option, but it comes with limitations:
- It’s available only for certain standard objects.
- It can delete a maximum of 250 records of a single object type at a time.
- It requires the appropriate user permissions.
Automated deletion uses third-party AppExchange apps or custom automation to go beyond the built-in Mass Delete limitations. Some AppExchange apps offer scheduled deletion services that can handle larger volumes across more object types, though they may come with their own limitations on record types or batch sizes. Another option is Scheduled Apex, which runs daily or weekly to delete records and files automatically. This approach requires ongoing code maintenance, and errors can cause permanent data loss.
Keep in mind that deletion alone rarely solves long-term storage problems — data accumulation typically outpaces what you can safely remove. This is especially true for companies in regulated industries where compliance requirements mandate keeping data for specific periods.
Save on file storage by compression
File compression reduces Salesforce file storage usage by shrinking existing attachments and re-uploading them in a smaller format. This method involves downloading and then compressing attachments into smaller files, before re-uploading them back to Salesforce and deleting the original, larger files to increase storage space. This works best for companies with minimal files or significant time to dedicate to the process. But even with enough time, this method requires some level of technical expertise and then there are usually limits on the sizes of attachments. This solution is likely to be only temporary though, as it can take a lot of time and effort to constantly compress files to free up space.
Because files continue to accumulate over time, compression is usually only a temporary solution. For a long-term approach that preserves data without ongoing manual work, archiving is often the better choice.
Archive your data
Data archiving reduces Salesforce storage usage by moving data out of Salesforce and into an external storage platform while keeping it accessible. Archiving frees up data storage space in your Salesforce org, improves performance, and avoids the recurring cost of purchasing additional Salesforce storage. Unlike deletion, archived data can still be viewed and retrieved when needed, making this approach a good fit for long-term storage management.
This approach also supports data retention requirements — you can keep required records without storing them directly in Salesforce, which lets you stay compliant with industry regulations while reducing the overall size and complexity of your Salesforce database.
Two types of data are commonly archived:
- Legacy data — older records that are rarely accessed by end users but continue to consume valuable storage space in your org.
- Compliance data — records that must be retained to meet legal or regulatory requirements but don’t need to remain active or searchable within Salesforce.
Gearset’s archiving solution
Gearset’s archiving solution helps to counter the Salesforce storage issues your team faces, by saving on Salesforce storage costs, improving performance of overflowing orgs and handling legacy data safely.
Who’s it for?
Gearset’s archiving solution is for any company who’s suffering at the hands of Salesforce storage limits and is responsible for legacy data and data for compliance. Archiving offers a long-term storage solution by encrypting and then looking after your important data in our secure AWS servers, which are also entrusted by Salesforce themselves.
How does archiving fulfill compliance regulations?
When configuring your archiving job, you can set up automatic rules based on record type or timeframe, including retention policies that delete your data once the specified time is reached. Also make sure to specify the relevant access levels, to ensure you data is as safe as possible and only accessible to those who need it.
Once your data has been archived, it can easily be restored in just a few clicks.
All data stored with Gearset is completely safe. We use enterprise-grade encryption, both in transit and at rest and you have the choice of where your data is hosted; in one of our data centers in the US, EU, Aus or Canada. Gearset is ISO 27001 certified and all our solutions are compliant with UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act, EU GDPR, the CCPA/CPRA, and HIPAA.
Take control of your data
To see how Gearset’s archiving solution can help with your Salesforce data storage optimization book a demo with one of our experts. You can find out more about how archiving works or if you’re ready to get going, start a free 30-day trial of Gearset today.
