Whether you prefer seeding your layers or you just set the cache on and wait for your clients' requests to populate it, the tiles can grow to a huge number of files and sizes. The folder configured for containing them may fill and you may run the filesystem on a shortage of resources. By default, the integrated GeoWebCache comes with unlimited disk usage for cached tiles. It is a good practice to configure it to a known value and to set a policy for tiles recycling.
From the GeoServer administration interface go to Disk Quota under the Tile caching section:
As you can see, there is an upper limit for cache size, that is, 500.0 MB, but the Enable disk quota flag is unchecked; you might wonder what happens when your cache size hits the limit. Set the limit at 5 megabytes and click on the Submit button.
Now go to the Tile layers form and open the cache preview for myLayerGroup, which you created in Chapter 6, Styling Your Layers. Browse the map, panning...