Linux VPS: Accounts using excessive disk space on unknown data

Server Config
1

cPanel shows my accounts using significantly less disk space than they are actually using. If I download a backup of an account, the size of the uncompressed backup matches the size that cPanel shows.

But… if I login to my SSH and enter “du -sh /home/*”, it shows each account using much more disk space than it should be.

For example, one particular account uses about 11.3 GB (according to cPanel and the backup’s filesize), with a quota limit of 12 GB. But SSH shows this account is using 22 GB.

Where is this all this extra disk usage coming from?

Does anyone think they know what the problem is here, and possibly how to fix it?

This problem is growing extremely rapidly, so any help would be so much appreciated. Thanks…

2

Hi,

It depends very much on the disk configuration for your VPS - it could have a much larger block size than your PC does. What’s the average size of the files in the folder?

Thanks,

3

Probably worth running a script to find large files e.g http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/find-large-files-linux/

e.g

$ find . -type f -size +50000k -exec ls -lh {} \\; | awk '{ print $9 ": " $5 }'
4

Linux shows the ‘submissions’ folder is using about 21 GB.

I have downloaded this entire folder to my local PC, and it is only using about 10 GB.

How can this be?