Many people have asked me how to understand the output of df command.
For all of them i suggest strongly one thing try to use df command as like below first
df -h
tvt2086:/products/WAS64ZLX # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/dasda1 4.2G 3.8G 347M 92% /
udev 1001M 140K 1001M 1% /dev
/dev/dasdf1 1.3G 14M 1.2G 2% /tools
/dev/mapper/pvols-lhome
2.0G 33M 2.0G 2% /home
/dev/mapper/pvols-products
6.2G 79M 6.1G 2% /products
/dev/mapper/pvols-ltmp
1.0G 33M 992M 4% /tmp
Basically df -h will gives the output in human readable form (-h)
So I will try to explain each column
column 1 : Filesystem
It basically tells how many disk drives are connected and available to the user.In the above case there are 6 drives connected. and they mapped to different folders. Ex : /dev/mapper/pvols-lhome is mounted to directory /home
Column 2 : Size
This basically tells how much capacity the disk is having. Say /dev/mapper/pvols-lhome is mounted to directory /home is of 2 GB capacity
Column 3 : Used
Simple it tells how much is used from the available
Column 4 : Avail
It tells how much is free presently, which is available space
Column 5: Use%
Used disk space in terms of %
Column 6 : Mounted on
This the directory on which the disk is mounted and through which we can use the space available.
we can use df -k Which gives the output in KB format.
Go to any of ur desired location and run the command "df -h ." or "df -k ."
tvt2086:/opt/DCD_Installers # df -h .
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/dasda1 4.2G 3.9G 308M 93% /
So it tells the disk details from which current directory is taking space.
"du -sh ." tell the space that was being occupied by current directory.
tvt2086:/opt/DCD_Installers # du -sh .
472M .
In the above example the directory named "DCD_Installers" is occupying around 472 MB on the disk space.

For all of them i suggest strongly one thing try to use df command as like below first
df -h
tvt2086:/products/WAS64ZLX # df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/dasda1 4.2G 3.8G 347M 92% /
udev 1001M 140K 1001M 1% /dev
/dev/dasdf1 1.3G 14M 1.2G 2% /tools
/dev/mapper/pvols-lhome
2.0G 33M 2.0G 2% /home
/dev/mapper/pvols-products
6.2G 79M 6.1G 2% /products
/dev/mapper/pvols-ltmp
1.0G 33M 992M 4% /tmp
Basically df -h will gives the output in human readable form (-h)
So I will try to explain each column
column 1 : Filesystem
It basically tells how many disk drives are connected and available to the user.In the above case there are 6 drives connected. and they mapped to different folders. Ex : /dev/mapper/pvols-lhome is mounted to directory /home
Column 2 : Size
This basically tells how much capacity the disk is having. Say /dev/mapper/pvols-lhome is mounted to directory /home is of 2 GB capacity
Column 3 : Used
Simple it tells how much is used from the available
Column 4 : Avail
It tells how much is free presently, which is available space
Column 5: Use%
Used disk space in terms of %
Column 6 : Mounted on
This the directory on which the disk is mounted and through which we can use the space available.
we can use df -k Which gives the output in KB format.
Go to any of ur desired location and run the command "df -h ." or "df -k ."
tvt2086:/opt/DCD_Installers # df -h .
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/dasda1 4.2G 3.9G 308M 93% /
So it tells the disk details from which current directory is taking space.
"du -sh ." tell the space that was being occupied by current directory.
tvt2086:/opt/DCD_Installers # du -sh .
472M .
In the above example the directory named "DCD_Installers" is occupying around 472 MB on the disk space.

Reactions: |
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
//
Labels:
UNIX
//
0
comments
//
0 comments to "df -h -k understanding output du"
Tags
Powered by WidgetsForFree
My Blog List
Popular posts
- Airtel and vodafone GPRS settings for pocket PC phones
- Andhra 2 America
- Ayyappa Deeksha required things
- Blogs I watch !
- Captions for your bike
- DB2 FAQs
- Deepavali Vs The Goddes of sleep
- ETV - Dhee D2 D3
- Evolution of smoking in India Women
- How to make credit card payments?
- Java-J2EE interview preparation
- My SQL FAQs
- My Travelogues
- Old is blod - New is italic
- Online pay methids for credit cards
- Oracle FAQs
- Pilgrimages
- Smoking in Indian Women
- Technology Vs Humans
- Twitter feeds for all Telugu stars on single page.
- Unix FAQs
- Unix best practices
- init 0, init 1, init 2 ..
- mCheck Application jar or jad download

Post a Comment
Who ever writes Inappropriate/Vulgar comments to context, generally want to be anonymous …So I hope U r not the one like that?
For lazy logs u can at least use Name/URL option which don’t even require any sign-in, good thing is that it can accept your lovely nick name also and URL is not mandatory too.
Thanks for your patience
~Krishna(I love "Transparency")
వీలయితే నాల్గు పోస్టులు ...కుదురితే ఒక కామెంటూ ...