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Calcrivo

Helm Revision Calculator

Calculate in-cluster storage consumed by Helm's retained revision history given `--history-max` and per-revision manifest size.

Inputs

revisions

Maximum revisions Helm retains per release (0 means unlimited).

KB

Stored size of a single revision's manifest + metadata.

Revisions Stored

10revisions

Total Revision Storage

0.439MB

Step by step

  1. Revisions stored = max history

    10

    = 10 revisions

  2. Storage = revisions × manifest size

    10 × 45KB

    = 450.0KB (0.44MB)

How it works

Every `helm upgrade` creates a new revision record while Helm prunes the oldest ones once the count exceeds `--history-max` (default 10; 0 disables pruning entirely). The in-cluster storage cost of this history is simply the number of retained revisions multiplied by the size of each stored manifest, which is why charts with very large rendered manifests should use a lower history-max to avoid unbounded Secret/ConfigMap growth.

Formula

storage = maxHistory × manifestSize

H
Max history (revisions retained)
M
Manifest size per revision in KB
S
Total revision storage in KB

Frequently Asked Questions

What happens if --history-max is set to 0?

Helm retains every revision ever created for that release indefinitely — useful for full audit trails, but storage grows without bound as upgrades accumulate over the release's lifetime.

Does pruning old revisions affect rollback capability?

Yes — once a revision is pruned it can no longer be targeted by `helm rollback <release> <revision>`; only the retained window of recent revisions remains available for rollback.

What's a sensible history-max for most releases?

The default of 10 is reasonable for most workloads; teams that upgrade very frequently (many times per day) often lower it to 3–5 to bound storage, while compliance-sensitive releases sometimes raise it or externalize history to Git instead.

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Helm Release History CalculatorHelm Release Size CalculatorHelm Rollback Duration CalculatorHelm Manifest Size Calculator