[Tfug] disk usage mystery..

[JD Rogers]

Hi All,

I've got a weird disk usage situation. I have about 1GB free on my
laptop at boot according to "df -h". After running for a day or so, I
get a friendly ubuntu warning that I have only 20MB free and "df -h"
reports 100% used (I have ext4 tuned to keep only 2GB for root, but
user space is filled). The tricky bit is that I can't see where this
disk space is going.

Since I noticed a reboot will reset back to about 1GB free, I
suspected something in /var like logs or maybe tmp or cache files in
the user home dir. However, "du -h --max-depth=1" in any of these
suspect places turned up no more than a few MG difference from at boot
time. In fact, I even did "du -h --max-depth=1 > duatboot" and waited
a until my disk was full, did it again and diffed the outputs. To my
surprised, the entire disk is essentially the same. So where is the
disk usage going!?

Now granted, 1GB free is not ideal these days, but I go through a lot
of data and only move it off to my workstation when I need to free up
space or move to another project. Running around 1GB free has worked
fine for the past year or so, and this behavior has only showed up in
the past few weeks.

Anyone have any insights or suggestions?

ubuntu 11.10 updated
ext4, encrypted home with ecryptfs
swap is on a separate partition

Thanks,
JDR