My backups have failed. How do I make sure it’s nothing on my end?

You probably want to start by identifying the largest files on your Linode. What you'll need to do to investigate this further is look into the file sizes of the directories in /dev/root. One useful command to help you look through the directories is:

--> du -shx /* | sort -rh | head

This will list out the largest 10 files and directories in a human readable format. After you've found the largest directory you can modify the command to look in sub-directories as needed. For example:

--> du -shx /home/* | sort -rh | head

The next action that you would need to take would depend on which files are taking up the space. You'll want to find the largest files and directories first and work backwards from there. If you find that log files are taking up the space, you can install something like logrotate to help manage your log files.

--> https://linode.com/docs/uptime/logs/use-logrotate-to-manage-log-files/

It's probably worth mentioning Block Storage. If you find that you need more storage, you can now add additional storage without upgrading your Linode to a higher plan CPU or memory plan. Prices start at $0.10/GiB per month and can be added at any time. Here are a couple links below about Block Storage if you wanted to learn more.

--> https://www.linode.com/blockstorage
--> https://linode.com/docs/platform/how-to-use-block-storage-with-your-linode/

As to Block Storage, please be aware that Block Storage is not backed up by our Backup Service so you should only consider moving over files that are not critical. Otherwise, you would want to look into backing up Block Storage to a Linode or other methods. Some useful options can be found here:

--> https://www.linode.com/docs/security/backups/backing-up-your-data/#set-up-automatic-backups-to-a-linux-server