Imgur now blocks several VPNs and have issues loading embedded previews in several fediverse platforms. So instead of using imgur, you could use one of the following alternatives for uploading your images.
https://postimages.org/
https://imgbox.com/
https://imgbb.com/
https://www.imagebam.com/
How do pixelfed instances even work. I imagine the storage requirements are crazy on a busy server.
Which may or may not be related to the main server having over a million users and the second biggest server obly having a couple thousand
Pixelfed.social gives you 7GB of total storage