Do not trust a set MaxAllocatedStorage value alone; confirm MaxAllocatedStorage is greater than AllocatedStorage or autoscaling is effectively off. Set a CloudWatch alarm on FreeStorageSpace well before it matters, and remember RDS storage only grows, never shrinks, with a cooldown of roughly 6 hours between scaling events.

Context: Ops guide: documents the gotcha that MaxAllocatedStorage being set does not mean storage autoscaling is active. Autoscaling only kicks in when MaxAllocatedStorage is greater than AllocatedStorage; if they are equal, RDS cannot grow and a full disk takes the instance down. Agents should verify the inequality, not just the presence of the setting.