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Homunculus Reticulli
Asked: 2012-07-04 23:54:48 +0800 CST

Deleted files not increasing available free space as reported by df -h

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I am writing data munging scripts (python and bash), to munge data and import large quantities of text files into a database.

I am currently in the test phase, so I am generating several K's of files and deleting them (the files consume about 20G of space). After a test run, I delete the files (sometimes without having imported into the database).

I notice that there is a steady decrease in the amount of free space on my disk (as reported by df -h). I don't understand this, as I use rm * (in the data directory), and in the cases where I use Nautilus, I empty the Trash bin as well.

Similarly, I notice that when I import the data into the (postgresql) database, and then delete the data from the tables using DELETE FROM tablename;, the size consumed in the postgresql data directory does not go down either.

Currently, I have lost approximately 200G from hard drive, and I need to reclaim that - but don't know what to do to reclaim it - any ideas?.

I am running Ubuntu 10.0.4 LTS + postgresql 8.4

[[Update]]

du -c / | 2>/dev/null | grep total produces this output:

4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-38-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-41-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-36-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-30-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-35-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-31-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-27-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-28-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-40-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-34-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-37-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-33-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-39-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-29-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
4   /usr/src/linux-headers-2.6.32-32-generic/include/config/mtdram/total
187426036   total

df -hi produces this output:

Filesystem            Inodes   IUsed   IFree IUse% Mounted on
/dev/sda1                29M    1.8M     27M    7% /
none                    491K     776    490K    1% /dev
none                    492K       6    492K    1% /dev/shm
none                    492K      76    492K    1% /var/run
none                    492K       2    492K    1% /var/lock
none                    492K       1    492K    1% /lib/init/rw
/dev/sdb1                30M    3.0K     30M    1% /mydata
/dev/sdc1                  0       0       0    -  /media/Cruzer
disk-usage

1 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Please show the output of du -c / | grep total and df -hi to judge where the space went. Also, refer to this post about Flushing the Postgresql cache.

    EDIT: You might want to either vacuum and reindex the database, or dump and restore. The growing size on many DELETE operations is a feature, not a bug, of Postgresql. See here.

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