How to check disk space on Unix servers

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Check disk space on Unix operating system

I recently switched from a Windows server 2016 to a FreeBSD Unix server. I need to check disk space on Unix command line. How do I find out disk space utilization information using the Unix command-line option?Unix family of operating systems offer the following commands to check disk space usage as per your needs.

Unix command to check disk space:

df command – Shows the amount of disk space used and available on Unix file systems. du command – Display disk usage statistic for each directory on Unix server.

How to display Unix disk usage statistics

See disk usage for all files in the current directory. Run:

du -a

To get the disk usage of a directory tree and each of its subtrees for /home/vivek, enter:

du /home/vivek

However, it is possible to see outout 1024-byte blocks if you pass the -k switch, enter:

du -k /home/vivek

Want to see total disk usage of a directory tree? Try:

du -s /home/vivek

248088 /home/vivek

One can summarize disk usage for a specific directory as follows:

du -hs /home

1.4G /home

Next let us show name and size of all py (Python) files in a specific directory. Also display grand total at the end:

du -ch /home/vivek/project/mgt1.2/*.py

Getting help about du command

Try running the following man command or see online man page here:

man du

whatis du

How to display free disk space info on Unix

To view the amount of free space in the file system, try df command:

df



Want to show information about /jails/www/ file system in 1024-byte blocks format, run:

df -k /jails/www/

Filesystem 1024-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on zroot/jails/www 10745194355 3152328 10742042027 0% /jails/www

Similarly, to show information about /jails/www file system in MB blocks format, enter:

df -m /jails/www/

Filesystem 1M-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on zroot/jails/www 10493353 3078 10490275 0% /jails/www

How about GB blocks format for /jails/www file system?, Try:

df -g /jails/www/

Filesystem 1G-blocks Used Avail Capacity Mounted on zroot/jails/www 10247 3 10244 0% /jails/www

Display a grand total

Pass the -c option:

df -c

Some version of Unix operating systems can display output in human readable format. In other words, Use unit suffixes: Byte, Kibibyte, Mebibyte, Gibibyte, Tebibyte and Pebibyte:

df -H

Sample outputs:

Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on zroot/ROOT/default 11T 4.2G 11T 0 % / devfs 1.0k 1.0k 0B 100 % /dev fdescfs 1.0k 1.0k 0B 100 % /dev/fd zroot/iocage 11T 148k 11T 0 % /iocage zroot/iocage/download 11T 131k 11T 0 % /iocage/download zroot/iocage/download/ 11.2 -RELEASE 11T 285M 11T 0 % /iocage/download/ 11.2 -RELEASE zroot/iocage/images 11T 131k 11T 0 % /iocage/images zroot/iocage/jails 11T 131k 11T 0 % /iocage/jails zroot/iocage/log 11T 131k 11T 0 % /iocage/log zroot/iocage/releases 11T 131k 11T 0 % /iocage/releases zroot/iocage/releases/ 11.2 -RELEASE 11T 131k 11T 0 % /iocage/releases/ 11.2 -RELEASE zroot/iocage/releases/ 11.2 -RELEASE/root 11T 1.2G 11T 0 % /iocage/releases/ 11.2 -RELEASE/root zroot/iocage/templates 11T 131k 11T 0 % /iocage/templates zroot/jails 11T 131k 11T 0 % /jails zroot/jails/fullbasejail 11T 364M 11T 0 % /jails/fullbasejail zroot/jails/rsnapshot 11T 209G 11T 2 % /jails/rsnapshot zroot/jails/www 11T 3.2G 11T 0 % /jails/www zroot/tmp 11T 131k 11T 0 % /tmp zroot/usr/home 11T 220k 11T 0 % /usr/home zroot/usr/ports 11T 1.0G 11T 0 % /usr/ports zroot/usr/src 11T 1.7G 11T 0 % /usr/src zroot/var/audit 11T 131k 11T 0 % /var/audit zroot/var/crash 11T 131k 11T 0 % /var/crash zroot/var/log 11T 4.2M 11T 0 % /var/log zroot/var/mail 11T 131k 11T 0 % /var/mail zroot/var/tmp 11T 131k 11T 0 % /var/tmp zroot 11T 131k 11T 0 % /zroot devfs 1.0k 1.0k 0B 100 % /jails/rsnapshot/dev devfs 1.0k 1.0k 0B 100 % /jails/www/dev Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on zroot/ROOT/default 11T 4.2G 11T 0% / devfs 1.0k 1.0k 0B 100% /dev fdescfs 1.0k 1.0k 0B 100% /dev/fd zroot/iocage 11T 148k 11T 0% /iocage zroot/iocage/download 11T 131k 11T 0% /iocage/download zroot/iocage/download/11.2-RELEASE 11T 285M 11T 0% /iocage/download/11.2-RELEASE zroot/iocage/images 11T 131k 11T 0% /iocage/images zroot/iocage/jails 11T 131k 11T 0% /iocage/jails zroot/iocage/log 11T 131k 11T 0% /iocage/log zroot/iocage/releases 11T 131k 11T 0% /iocage/releases zroot/iocage/releases/11.2-RELEASE 11T 131k 11T 0% /iocage/releases/11.2-RELEASE zroot/iocage/releases/11.2-RELEASE/root 11T 1.2G 11T 0% /iocage/releases/11.2-RELEASE/root zroot/iocage/templates 11T 131k 11T 0% /iocage/templates zroot/jails 11T 131k 11T 0% /jails zroot/jails/fullbasejail 11T 364M 11T 0% /jails/fullbasejail zroot/jails/rsnapshot 11T 209G 11T 2% /jails/rsnapshot zroot/jails/www 11T 3.2G 11T 0% /jails/www zroot/tmp 11T 131k 11T 0% /tmp zroot/usr/home 11T 220k 11T 0% /usr/home zroot/usr/ports 11T 1.0G 11T 0% /usr/ports zroot/usr/src 11T 1.7G 11T 0% /usr/src zroot/var/audit 11T 131k 11T 0% /var/audit zroot/var/crash 11T 131k 11T 0% /var/crash zroot/var/log 11T 4.2M 11T 0% /var/log zroot/var/mail 11T 131k 11T 0% /var/mail zroot/var/tmp 11T 131k 11T 0% /var/tmp zroot 11T 131k 11T 0% /zroot devfs 1.0k 1.0k 0B 100% /jails/rsnapshot/dev devfs 1.0k 1.0k 0B 100% /jails/www/dev

See df command man page here or by typing the following command for more info:

man df

Conclusion

You learned how to see free and used disk space as well as disk usage statistics on Unix systems.