1. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions that when executed by an apparatus control the apparatus to perform a method, the method comprising: identifying an inode associated with an object located in a hierarchical file system, where the hierarchical file system has a root directory, where the hierarchical file system has a subdirectory that branches out from the root directory along a pathway, and where the object is subject to a size altering operation; identifying an inode chain that describes a pathway in the hierarchical file system from the object through a subdirectory based, at least in part, on ancestry information associated with the inode, where identifying the inode chain includes walking up the inode chain to the root directory by identifying a parent of the inode or by identifying a parent of the object; performing a size constraint analysis for the subdirectory on the pathway based, at least in part, on size constraint information associated with the inodes on the inode chain, by calculating a change in size of the object based on a determination that the size altering operation were to be performed and comparing the calculated change in size of the object to a size constraint, where the size constraint limits the amount by which the size of the object is allowed to change in a transaction, where the size constraint information is stored in a size constraint information data structure external to an inode table, where the size constraint information data structure is a b-tree; and selectively performing the size altering operation associated with the object based, at least in part, on the size constraint analysis, wherein at least one of: an inode associated with an object subject to a size constraint is stored more frequently in a cache memory in the apparatus than an inode that is associated with an object that is not subject to a size constraint, or the inode associated with an object subject to a size constraint is stored for a longer period of time in the cache memory than the inode that is associated with an object that is not subject to a size constraint, or the inode associated with an object subject to a size constraint is stored permanently in the cache memory.