[CentOS] du vs df size difference

Ryan Pugatch

rpug at tripadvisor.com
Wed Sep 30 20:59:25 UTC 2009


Hi all,

Curious issue.. looking in to how much disk space is being used on a 
machine (CentOS 5.3).  When I compare the output of du vs df, I am 
seeing a 12GB difference with du saying 8G used and df saying 20G used.

# du -hcx /
8.0G    total

# df -h /
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/xvda3             22G   20G  637M  97% /

I recognize that in most cases du and df are not going to report the 
same but I am concerned about having a 12GB disparity.  Does anyone have 
any thoughts about this or reason as to why there is a big difference? 
I have read a few articles online about it and none have really shown 
such a large difference.

Thanks



Ryan Pugatch
Systems Administrator, TripAdvisor



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