Linux partition free space

Linux / Unix – Checking Free Disk Space

Tutorial details
Difficulty level	Easy
Root privileges	No
Requirements	None
Est. reading time	1m

(a) df command : Report file system disk space usage.

(b) du command : Estimate file space usage.

df command examples to check free disk space

Type df -h or df -k to list free disk space:
$ df -h
OR
$ df -k
Sample outputs that show disk space utilization:

The df utility displays statistics about the amount of free disk space on the specified file system or on the file system of which file is a part. Values are displayed in 512-byte per block counts. The -H option is called as “Human-readable” output. It use unit suffixes: Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte and Petabyte in order to reduce the number of digits to four or fewer using base 10 for sizes i.e. you see 30G (30 Gigabyte).

How to check free disk space in Linux

To see the file system’s complete disk usage pass the -a option:
df -a
Find out disk usage and filesystem type by passing the -T option:
df -T
Want to get used and free inodes information on Linux? Try:
df -i

du command examples for checking free and used disk space

The du command shows how much space one ore more files or directories is using, enter:
$ du -sh
Sample outputs:

Fig.01: Unix df and du command outputs from my FreeBSD server

Say hello to ncdu command

ncdu (NCurses Disk Usage) is a curses-based version of the well-known ‘du’, and provides a fast way to see what directories are using your disk space. One can install with the following apt command/apt-get command:
sudo apt install ncdu
For RHEL/CentOS, first enable EPEL repo (see CentOS 8 turn on EPEL repo and RHEL 8 enable epel repo) and type the following yum command:
sudo yum install ncdu
Now just type:
ncdu
ncdu [dir] ncdu /etc/

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GUI program

Above programs are good if GUI is not installed or you are working with remote system over the ssh based session. Linux and UNIX-like oses comes with KDE and Gnome desktop system. You will find Free Disk Space Applet located under GUI menus. Here is a sample from Fedora Linux version 22 system:

Conclusion

You learned how to keep track of disk utilization, and disk space with various Linux and Unix commands.

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How to extend partition with free space that is before it using gparted?

I have my Windows partition (C), 9GB of free space and then I have my Linux partition. How do I expand my Linux partition with that 9GB of free space using Gparted and without losing everything I have?

If this is not possible, is there another tool (safer one) that I can use?

2 Answers 2

Option 1:

Moving /boot partition can render unbootable system. So, instead of moving the / (root) partition you can use the partition as a new /home partition. This link explains how.

Option 2:

But if you want to attempt a move, make sure you are backed up and then follow the steps below:

Start GParted in live Ubuntu session,

If you have swap partition(s), right click on it/them and select swapoff (Edit: you can skip this as your snapshot does not show any swap used),

Also unmount (if they’re mounted) all the partitions that will be involved in the resize/move operation (by right clicking and selecting unmount from the context menu),

(WARNING: moving /boot partition may cause boot failure!) Now right click your extended partition /dev/sda2 (in your case) and select Resize/Move option, and drag the slider left to cover the unallocated space. Repeat the process with /dev/sda5 to cover the space created in the extended partiton. And then click the Resize/Move button,

After specifying such move and resize options, from the menu select Edit -> Apply All Operations or click the apply button in the toolbar. The resize and particularly move option will take a long time depending on the size of the files to be moved. So wait patiently.

You should then be done! Reboot to see if every thing is fine. If something went wrong and you’re unable to boot, try boot-repair to fix it.

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Check free disk space for current partition in bash

I am writing an installer in bash. The user will go to the target directory and runs the install script, so the first action should be to check that there is enough space. I know that df will report all file systems, but I was wondering if there was a way to get the free space just for the partition that the target directory is on.

Edit — the answer I came up with

Slightly odd because df seems to format its output to fit the terminal, so with a long mount point name the output is shifted down a line

7 Answers 7

for the current directory.

if you want to check a specific directory.

You might also want to check out the stat(1) command if your system has it. You can specify output formats to make it easier for your script to parse. Here’s a little example:

1. df command : Report file system disk space usage
2. du command : Estimate file space usage

Type df -h or df -k to list free disk space:

du shows how much space one or more files or directories is using:

The -s option summarizes the space a directory is using and -h option provides Human-readable output.

I think this should be a comment or an edit to ThinkingMedia’s answer on this very question (Check free disk space for current partition in bash), but I am not allowed to comment (not enough rep) and my edit has been rejected (reason: «this should be a comment or an answer»). So please, powers of the SO universe, don’t damn me for repeating and fixing someone else’s «answer». But someone on the internet was wrong!™ and they wouldn’t let me fix it.

has a substantial flaw: Yes, it will output 50G free as 50 — but it will also output 5.0M free as 50 or 3.4G free as 34 or 15K free as 15.

To create a script with the purpose of checking for a certain amount of free disk space you have to know the unit you’re checking against. Remove it (as sed does in the example above) the numbers don’t make sense anymore.

If you actually want it to work, you will have to do something like:

Also for an installer to df -k $INSTALL_TARGET_DIRECTORY might make more sense than df -k «$PWD» . Finally, please note that the —output flag is not available in every version of df / linux.

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Partitioning

Disk partitioning or disk slicing is the creation of one or more regions on secondary storage, so that each region can be managed separately.

An entire disk may be allocated to a single partition, or multiple ones for cases such as dual-booting, maintaining a swap partition, or to logically separate data such as audio and video files. The partitioning scheme is stored in a partition table such as Master Boot Record (MBR) or GUID Partition Table (GPT).

Partition tables are created and modified using one of many partitioning tools. The tools available for Arch Linux are listed in the #Partitioning tools section.

Partitions usually contain a file system directly which is accomplished by creating a file system on (a.k.a. formatting) the partition. Alternatively, partitions can contain LVM, block device encryption or RAID, which ultimately provide device files on which a file system can be placed (or the devices can be stacked further).

Any block device (e.g. disk, partition, LUKS device, LVM logical volume or RAID array) that directly contains a mountable file system is called a volume.

Contents

Partition table

There are two main types of partition table available. These are described below in the #Master Boot Record (MBR) and #GUID Partition Table (GPT) sections along with a discussion on how to choose between the two. A third, less common alternative is using a partitionless disk, which is also discussed.

Use a partitioning tool to view the partition table of a block device.

Master Boot Record

The Master Boot Record (MBR) is the first 512 bytes of a storage device. It contains an operating system bootloader and the storage device’s partition table. It plays an important role in the boot process under BIOS systems. See Wikipedia:Master boot record#Disk partitioning for the MBR structure.

Master Boot Record (bootstrap code)

The first 440 bytes of MBR are the bootstrap code area. On BIOS systems it usually contains the first stage of the boot loader. The bootstrap code can be backed up, restored from backup or erased using dd.

Master Boot Record (partition table)

In the MBR partition table (also known as DOS or MS-DOS partition table) there are 3 types of partitions:

Primary partitions can be bootable and are limited to four partitions per disk or RAID volume. If the MBR partition table requires more than four partitions, then one of the primary partitions needs to be replaced by an extended partition containing logical partitions within it.

Extended partitions can be thought of as containers for logical partitions. A hard disk can contain no more than one extended partition. The extended partition is also counted as a primary partition so if the disk has an extended partition, only three additional primary partitions are possible (i.e. three primary partitions and one extended partition). The number of logical partitions residing in an extended partition is unlimited. A system that dual boots with Windows will require for Windows to reside in a primary partition.

The customary numbering scheme is to create primary partitions sda1 through sda3 followed by an extended partition sda4. The logical partitions on sda4 are numbered sda5, sda6, etc.

GUID Partition Table

GUID Partition Table (GPT) is a partitioning scheme that is part of the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface specification; it uses globally unique identifiers (GUIDs), or UUIDs in the Linux world, to define partitions and partition types. It is designed to succeed the Master Boot Record partitioning scheme method.

At the start of a GUID Partition Table disk there is a protective Master Boot Record (PMBR) to protect against GPT-unaware software. This protective MBR just like an ordinary MBR has a bootstrap code area which can be used for BIOS/GPT booting with boot loaders that support it.

Choosing between GPT and MBR

GUID Partition Table (GPT) is an alternative, contemporary, partitioning style; it is intended to replace the old Master Boot Record (MBR) system. GPT has several advantages over MBR which has quirks dating back to MS-DOS times. With the recent developments to the formatting tools, it is equally easy to get good dependability and performance for GPT or MBR.

Some points to consider when choosing:

• To dual-boot with Windows (both 32-bit and 64-bit) using Legacy BIOS, the MBR scheme is required.
• To dual-boot Windows 64-bit using UEFI mode instead of BIOS, the GPT scheme is required.
• If you are installing on older hardware, especially on old laptops, consider choosing MBR because its BIOS might not support GPT (but see below how to fix it).
• If you are partitioning a disk that is larger than 2 TiB, you need to use GPT.
• It is recommended to always use GPT for UEFI boot, as some UEFI implementations do not support booting to the MBR while in UEFI mode.
• If none of the above apply, choose freely between GPT and MBR. Since GPT is more modern, it is recommended in this case.

Some advantages of GPT over MBR are:

• Provides a unique disk GUID and unique partition GUID (PARTUUID) for each partition — A good filesystem-independent way of referencing partitions and disks.
• Provides a filesystem-independent partition name (PARTLABEL).
• Arbitrary number of partitions — depends on space allocated for the partition table — No need for extended and logical partitions. By default the GPT table contains space for defining 128 partitions. However if you want to define more partitions, you can allocate more space to the partition table (currently only gdisk is known to support this feature).
• Uses 64-bit LBA for storing Sector numbers — maximum addressable disk size is 2 ZiB. MBR is limited to addressing 2 TiB of space per drive.[1]
• Stores a backup header and partition table at the end of the disk that aids in recovery in case the primary ones are damaged.
• CRC32 checksums to detect errors and corruption of the header and partition table.

The section on #Partitioning tools contains a table indicating which tools are available for creating and modifying GPT and MBR tables.

Partitionless disk

This article or section needs expansion.

Partitionless disk a.k.a. superfloppy refers to a storage device without a partition table, having one file system occupying the whole storage device. The boot sector present on a partitionless device is called a volume boot record (VBR).

Btrfs partitioning

Btrfs can occupy an entire data storage device and replace the MBR or GPT partitioning schemes. See the Btrfs#Partitionless Btrfs disk instructions for details.

Partition scheme

This article or section needs expansion.

There are no strict rules for partitioning a hard drive, although one may follow the general guidance given below. A disk partitioning scheme is determined by various issues such as desired flexibility, speed, security, as well as the limitations imposed by available disk space. It is essentially personal preference. If you would like to dual boot Arch Linux and a Windows operating system please see Dual boot with Windows.

Single root partition

This scheme is the simplest and should be enough for most use cases. A swapfile can be created and easily resized as needed. It usually makes sense to start by considering a single / partition and then separate out others based on specific use cases like RAID, encryption, a shared media partition, etc.

Discrete partitions

This article or section needs expansion.

Separating out a path as a partition allows for the choice of a different filesystem and mount options. In some cases like a media partition, they can also be shared between operating systems.

Below are some example layouts that can be used when partitioning, and the following subsections detail a few of the directories which can be placed on their own separate partition and then mounted at mount points under / . See file-hierarchy(7) for a full description of the contents of these directories.

The root directory is the top of the hierarchy, the point where the primary filesystem is mounted and from which all other filesystems stem. All files and directories appear under the root directory / , even if they are stored on different physical devices. The contents of the root filesystem must be adequate to boot, restore, recover, and/or repair the system. Therefore, certain directories under / are not candidates for separate partitions.

The / partition or root partition is necessary and it is the most important. The other partitions can be replaced by it.

/ traditionally contains the /usr directory, which can grow significantly depending upon how much software is installed. 15–20 GiB should be sufficient for most users with modern hard disks. If you plan to store a swap file here, you might need a larger partition size.

The /boot directory contains the kernel and ramdisk images as well as the boot loader configuration file and boot loader stages. It also stores data that is used before the kernel begins executing user-space programs. /boot is not required for normal system operation, but only during boot and kernel upgrades (when regenerating the initial ramdisk).

A suggested size for /boot is 200 MiB unless you are using EFI system partition as /boot , in which case at least 260 MiB is recommended.

The /home directory contains user-specific configuration files, caches, application data and media files.

Separating out /home allows / to be re-partitioned separately, but note that you can still reinstall Arch with /home untouched even if it is not separate—the other top-level directories just need to be removed, and then pacstrap can be run.

You should not share home directories between users on different distributions, because they use incompatible software versions and patches. Instead, consider sharing a media partition or at least using different home directories on the same /home partition. The size of this partition varies.

The /var directory stores variable data such as spool directories and files, administrative and logging data, pacman’s cache, etc. It is used, for example, for caching and logging, and hence frequently read or written. Keeping it in a separate partition avoids running out of disk space due to flunky logs, etc.

It exists to make it possible to mount /usr as read-only. Everything that historically went into /usr that is written to during system operation (as opposed to installation and software maintenance) must reside under /var .

/var will contain, among other data, the pacman cache. Retaining these packages is helpful in case a package upgrade causes instability, requiring a downgrade to an older, archived package. The pacman cache will grow as the system is expanded and updated, but it can be safely cleared if space becomes an issue. 8–12 GiB on a desktop system should be sufficient for /var , depending on how much software will be installed.

One can consider mounting a «data» partition to cover various files to be shared by all users. Using the /home partition for this purpose is fine as well. The size of this partition varies.

A swap is a file or partition that provides disk space used as virtual memory. Swap files and swap partitions are equally performant, but swap files are much easier to resize as needed. A swap partition can potentially be shared between operating systems, but not if hibernation is used.

Historically, the general rule for swap partition size was to allocate twice the amount of physical RAM. As computers have gained ever larger memory capacities, this rule is outdated. For example, on average desktop machines with up to 512 MiB RAM, the 2× rule is usually adequate; if a sufficient amount of RAM (more than 1024 MiB) is available, it may be possible to have a smaller swap partition.

To use hibernation (a.k.a suspend to disk) it is advised to create the swap partition at the size of RAM. Although the kernel will try to compress the suspend-to-disk image to fit the swap space there is no guarantee it will succeed if the used swap space is significantly smaller than RAM. See Power management/Suspend and hibernate#Hibernation for more information.

Example layouts

This article or section needs expansion.

The following examples use /dev/sda as the example disk with /dev/sda1 as the first partition. The block device naming scheme will differ if you are partitioning a NVMe disk (e.g. /dev/nvme0n1 with partitions starting from /dev/nvme0n1p1 ) or an SD card or eMMC disk (e.g. /dev/mmcblk0 with partitions starting from /dev/mmcblk0p1 ). See Device file#Block device names for more information.

UEFI/GPT layout example

Mount point on the installed system	Partition	Partition type GUID	Partition attributes	Suggested size
/boot or /efi 1	/dev/sda1	C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B : EFI system partition	At least 260 MiB
[SWAP]	/dev/sda2	0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F : Linux swap	More than 512 MiB
/	/dev/sda3	4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709 : Linux x86-64 root (/)	Remainder of the device

BIOS/MBR layout example

Mount point on the installed system	Partition	Partition type ID	Boot flag	Suggested size
[SWAP]	/dev/sda1	82 : Linux swap	No	More than 512 MiB
/	/dev/sda2	83 : Linux	Yes	Remainder of the device
N/A	Unallocated space 2	N/A	N/A	At least 16.5 KiB at the end of the disk

BIOS/GPT layout example

Mount point on the installed system	Partition	Partition type GUID	Partition attributes	Suggested size
None	/dev/sda1	21686148-6449-6E6F-744E-656564454649 : BIOS boot partition 3	1 MiB
[SWAP]	/dev/sda2	0657FD6D-A4AB-43C4-84E5-0933C84B4F4F : Linux swap	More than 512 MiB
/	/dev/sda3	4F68BCE3-E8CD-4DB1-96E7-FBCAF984B709 : Linux x86-64 root (/)	Remainder of the device

1. The ESP can be mounted to /efi if the used boot loader is capable of accessing the file system (and everything above it) on which the kernel and initramfs images are located. See EFI system partition#Typical mount points and the warning in Arch boot process#Boot loader for details.
2. An unpartitioned space of at least 33 512-byte sectors (16.5 KiB) at the end of the disk to allow converting to GPT in the future. The space will be required for the backup GPT header. The recommendation to preserve an unpartitioned space applies to all MBR partitioned disks.
3. A BIOS boot partition is only required when using GRUB for BIOS booting from a GPT disk. The partition has nothing to do with /boot , and it must not be formatted with a file system or mounted.

Tools

Partitioning tools

The following programs are used to create and/or manipulate device partition tables and partitions. See the linked articles for the exact commands to be used.

This table will help you to choose utility for your needs:

MBR	GPT
Dialog	fdisk parted	fdisk gdisk parted
Pseudo-graphics	cfdisk	cfdisk cgdisk
Non-interactive	sfdisk parted	sfdisk sgdisk parted
Graphical	GParted gnome-disk-utility partitionmanager	GParted gnome-disk-utility partitionmanager

fdisk

fdisk and its related utilities are described in the fdisk article.

• fdisk ( util-linux )
  • fdisk(8) – Dialog-driven program for creation and manipulation of partition tables.
  • cfdisk(8) – Curses-based variant of fdisk.
  • sfdisk(8) – Scriptable variant of fdisk.

GPT fdisk

gdisk and its related utilities are described in the gdisk article.

GNU Parted

These group of tools are described in the GNU Parted article.

Backup

• fdisk can create a backup of the partitions table. See fdisk#Backup and restore partition table.
• GPT fdisk can create a binary backup consisting of the protective MBR, the main GPT header, the backup GPT header, and one copy of the partition table. See GPT fdisk#Backup and restore partition table.

Recovery

• gpart — A utility that guesses the contents of a destroyed MBR partition table. Its usage is explained in the gpart(8) man page.

https://github.com/baruch/gpart || gpart

• GPT fdisk — A partitioning tool that can restore the primary GPT header (located at the start of the disk) from the secondary GPT header (located at the end of the disk) or vice versa.

https://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/ || gptfdisk

• TestDisk — A utility that supports recovering lost partitions on both MBR and GPT.

https://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html || testdisk

Partition alignment

fdisk, gdisk and parted handle alignment automatically. See GNU Parted#Check alignment if you want to verify your alignment after partitioning.

For certain drives Advanced Format might be able to provide a better-performing alignment.

GPT kernel support

The CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION option in the kernel config enables GPT support in the kernel (despite the name, EFI PARTITION). This option must be built in the kernel and not compiled as a loadable module. This option is required even if GPT disks are used only for data storage and not for booting. This option is enabled by default in all Arch’s officially supported kernels. In case of a custom kernel, enable this option by doing CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION=y .

Troubleshooting

This article or section needs expansion.

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