What’s my disk usage? How can i clear some space?

The following instructions are Linux-based commands, which you can use either on an EECS Linux Desktop/Server or on a ‘login server‘.

Disk quota

In Linux, you can use the quota command to display your current quota usage:

[-bash-4.1]$ quota -s
Disk quotas for user jdoe123 (uid 012345):
     Filesystem   space   quota   limit   grace   files   quota   limit   grace
stilton:          4500M*  4000M    5000M   30      215k    0       0 
/export/user10

Here’s a quick explanation of these numbers:

• space*: Your home directory is currently 4,4GB big. The asterisk * next to it means that you are exceeding the allocated ‘soft limit’ for your user, which is explained next.
• quota:  This is the ‘soft limit’ for your user. If you have exceeded that limit, you must clear some files from your home directory before the ‘grace period’ expires.
• limit: This is the ‘hard limit’. If you exceed that limit, you will not be able to create any new files. This will lead to a situation where you will not be able to log into a Linux desktop.
• grace: The grace period, before the end of which you must clear some files from your home directory, if you have exceeded your ‘soft limit’.
• files: The number of the files in your home directory.

Disk usage

You can use the linux command du (Disk Usage) is very handy for tracking down files that consume large amounts of space in your home directory. Each user group (Students — UGs/PGs and Staff/PhD) have different allowances for disk quota.

To list the total disk usage in a human readable-format (i.e., size specified in K/MB etc.), type ‘du -sh’ :

[-bash-4.1]$ du -sh
60M

• • To list a summary of top-level directories and their space consumption, type ‘du -sh * ‘:

[-bash-4.1]$ du -sh *
32K My Documents
432K profile
59M public_html

• • To order directories by their space consumption (largest first), type ‘du -sh * | sort -rh’ :

[-bash-4.1]$ du -sh * | sort -rh
59M public_html
432K profile
32K My Documents

• • To list all entries (and their space consumption) in an ordered format, type ‘du -ch * | sort -rh’ :

[-bash-4.1]$ du -ch * | sort -rh
60M    total
59M    public_html
58M    public_html/Media
524K    public_html/Publications_files
432K    profile
380K    public_html/Scripts

• • To show the time of last modifcation of any file in the respective directories, type ‘du –time -sh * | sort -rh’:

[-bash-4.1]$ du --time -sh * | sort -rh

Further Reading: To learn more about the du command and its extensive usage options, type ‘man du’