How to Check Disk Space Usage in Linux Using the df Command?

You need to check a current disk space usage (or enough free disk space) on your Linux system before you performing any patch update or installing a new application or downloading a large file.

It’s a prerequisites to perform the above tasks, that will help you in many ways. It can be done easily by using df command on Linux.

What’s df Command?

df command stands for Disk Filesystem. It shows detailed report of disk space usage on the Linux system.

It displays the amount of total disk space, available disk space, used disk space, disk used percentage and mounted filesystem on the Linux system.

The df command doesn’t show the space available on unmounted file systems.

df command output comes with six fields and each field contains the different information. The details are below.

How to Check File System Disk Space Usage in Linux?

By default, df command displays all mounted filesystems except dummy file systems. This output comes with 1 kilobyte blocks for partition size, which is very difficult to read by users.

# df
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1       83874816 80545500   3329316  97% /
devtmpfs         1929456        0   1929456   0% /dev
tmpfs            1940200        0   1940200   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs            1940200   197464   1742736  11% /run
tmpfs            1940200        0   1940200   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop0       3728256     7764   3527776   1% /tmp
tmpfs             388040        0    388040   0% /run/user/0

How to Check All Available File System Disk Space Usage in Linux?

It’s same as above but includes dummy filesystems in the output, to do so, add -a option with df command. These are virtual filesystems, which is used by kernel for different purpose (it’s like proc, sys, etc)

# df -a
Filesystem     1K-blocks     Used Available Use% Mounted on
rootfs                 -        -         -    - /
sysfs                  0        0         0    - /sys
proc                   0        0         0    - /proc
devtmpfs         1929456        0   1929456   0% /dev
securityfs             0        0         0    - /sys/kernel/security
tmpfs            1940200        0   1940200   0% /dev/shm
devpts                 0        0         0    - /dev/pts
tmpfs            1940200   197464   1742736  11% /run
tmpfs            1940200        0   1940200   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/systemd
pstore                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/pstore
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/net_cls,net_prio
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/devices
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/blkio
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/pids
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/cpuset
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/perf_event
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/freezer
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/memory
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/cpu,cpuacct
cgroup                 0        0         0    - /sys/fs/cgroup/hugetlb
configfs               0        0         0    - /sys/kernel/config
/dev/vda1       83874816 80545500   3329316  97% /
systemd-1              0        0         0    - /proc/sys/fs/binfmt_misc
hugetlbfs              0        0         0    - /dev/hugepages
debugfs                0        0         0    - /sys/kernel/debug
mqueue                 0        0         0    - /dev/mqueue
/dev/loop0       3728256     7764   3527776   1% /tmp
/dev/loop0       3728256     7764   3527776   1% /var/tmp
tmpfs             388040        0    388040   0% /run/user/0

How to Check File System Disk Space Usage in Human Readable Format in Linux?

Add -h option with df command to print the output with human readable format.

# df -h
or
# df -H
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        80G   77G  3.2G  97% /
devtmpfs        1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           1.9G  193M  1.7G  11% /run
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop0      3.6G  7.6M  3.4G   1% /tmp
tmpfs           379M     0  379M   0% /run/user/0

How to Check File System Disk Space Usage with Inode Information in Linux?

To view the filesystem inode usage, use -i option that will show you inodes usage (used & available) of the filesystem.

How this output help you? Inode usage output can help you when you are getting an error “No space left on device”.

Say for example, you are having enough disk space on your mount point, however, you are getting an above error message. What would be the reason?

You might have used all the allocated inodes in the filesystem.

# df -i
Filesystem       Inodes   IUsed    IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/vda1      15486384 1829165 13657219   12% /
devtmpfs         482364     331   482033    1% /dev
tmpfs            485050       1   485049    1% /dev/shm
tmpfs            485050     594   484456    1% /run
tmpfs            485050      16   485034    1% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop0       240960      56   240904    1% /tmp
tmpfs            485050       1   485049    1% /run/user/0

How to Check File System Disk Space Usage with Mounted Filesystem Type in Linux?

If you would like to print filesystem types in the df command output, use -T option.

# df -hT
Filesystem     Type      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1      xfs        80G   77G  3.2G  97% /
devtmpfs       devtmpfs  1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs          tmpfs     1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs          tmpfs     1.9G  193M  1.7G  11% /run
tmpfs          tmpfs     1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop0     ext3      3.6G  7.6M  3.4G   1% /tmp
tmpfs          tmpfs     379M     0  379M   0% /run/user/0

How to View File System Usage in POSIX Output Format in Linux?

Some times you might get the df command output in the wrong format due to filesystems characters length. I had found this issue in RHEL 6 systems and the details are added below.

To overcome this issue, add -P option with df command.

# df -h

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg_2g-lv_root
                       10G  6.7G  3.4G  67% /
tmpfs                 7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1             976M   95M  830M  11% /boot
/dev/mapper/vg_2g-lv_home
                      5.0G  4.3G  784M  85% /home
/dev/mapper/vg_2g-lv_tmp
                      4.8G   14M  4.6G   1% /tmp

df command with POSIX Output Format.

# df -hP

Filesystem            		Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg_2g-lv_root   10G  6.7G  3.4G  67% /
tmpfs                 		7.8G     0  7.8G   0% /dev/shm
/dev/sda1             		976M   95M  830M  11% /boot
/dev/mapper/vg_2g-lv_home   5.0G  4.3G  784M  85% /home
/dev/mapper/vg_2g-lv_tmp    4.8G   14M  4.6G   1% /tmp

How to Check File System Disk Space Usage Of a Particular Filesystem in Linux?

If you want to print particular filesystem details in the df command output, use the following format.

# df -h /
or
# df -h /dev/vda1

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        80G   77G  3.2G  97% /

How to Check File System Usage Of a Particular Filesystem Type in Linux?

If you want to print particular filesystems type in the df command output, use -t option with df command.

# df -ht tmpfs
or
# df -h --type=tmpfs

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           1.9G  193M  1.7G  11% /run
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
tmpfs           379M     0  379M   0% /run/user/0

How to Check File System Disk Space Usage with a Grand Total in Linux?

This option is very helpful when you have larger filesystems in the system. This option gives a grand total of all filesystems. To do so, use --total option with df command.

# df -h --total
Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        80G   77G  3.2G  97% /
devtmpfs        1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           1.9G  193M  1.7G  11% /run
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop0      3.6G  7.6M  3.4G   1% /tmp
tmpfs           379M     0  379M   0% /run/user/0
total            92G   78G   15G  85% -

How to Check Only Local File System Disk Space Usage in Linux?

By default, df command print all the mounted filesystems, which includes remote filesystems like nfs, samba, etc. If you would like to display only local filesystem in the df command output, use -l option.

# df -l

Filesystem      Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/vda1        80G   77G  3.2G  97% /
devtmpfs        1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev/shm
tmpfs           1.9G  193M  1.7G  11% /run
tmpfs           1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /sys/fs/cgroup
/dev/loop0      3.6G  7.6M  3.4G   1% /tmp
tmpfs           379M     0  379M   0% /run/user/0

About Magesh Maruthamuthu

Love to play with all Linux distribution

View all posts by Magesh Maruthamuthu

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