CentOS - Oct 2015 - strange diskspace consuming

Hi,

I do a tgz-backup some maildir-folders with n*1000 off files and a lot
of GB in storage. The backuped maildirs are removed after the tar.

My assumption was, that the free diskspace should be bigger after that,
but from what I get with df, it looks like I'm loosing space.

Currently the tgz is saved on the same disk/mountpoint.

Any hint, why removing the maildirs dont free diskspace as expected?

It is still an ext3 filesystme

	Regards and thanks for hints . G?tz

-- 
G?tz Reinicke
IT-Koordinator

Tel. +49 7141 969 82420
E-Mail goetz.reinicke at filmakademie.de

Filmakademie Baden-W?rttemberg GmbH
Akademiehof 10
71638 Ludwigsburg
www.filmakademie.de

Eintragung Amtsgericht Stuttgart HRB 205016

Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: J?rgen Walter MdL
Staatssekret?r im Ministerium f?r Wissenschaft,
Forschung und Kunst Baden-W?rttemberg

Gesch?ftsf?hrer: Prof. Thomas Schadt

Try running, "sync".

On Tue, Oct 20, 2015 at 3:11 PM, G?tz Reinicke - IT Koordinator
<goetz.reinicke at filmakademie.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I do a tgz-backup some maildir-folders with n*1000 off files and a lot
> of GB in storage. The backuped maildirs are removed after the tar.
>
> My assumption was, that the free diskspace should be bigger after that,
> but from what I get with df, it looks like I'm loosing space.
>
> Currently the tgz is saved on the same disk/mountpoint.
>
> Any hint, why removing the maildirs dont free diskspace as expected?
>
> It is still an ext3 filesystme
>
>         Regards and thanks for hints . G?tz
>
> --
> G?tz Reinicke
> IT-Koordinator
>
> Tel. +49 7141 969 82420
> E-Mail goetz.reinicke at filmakademie.de
>
> Filmakademie Baden-W?rttemberg GmbH
> Akademiehof 10
> 71638 Ludwigsburg
> www.filmakademie.de
>
> Eintragung Amtsgericht Stuttgart HRB 205016
>
> Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrats: J?rgen Walter MdL
> Staatssekret?r im Ministerium f?r Wissenschaft,
> Forschung und Kunst Baden-W?rttemberg
>
> Gesch?ftsf?hrer: Prof. Thomas Schadt
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CentOS mailing list
> CentOS at centos.org
> https://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
>

On 20.10.2015 12:11, G?tz Reinicke - IT Koordinator
wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I do a tgz-backup some maildir-folders with n*1000 off files and a lot
> of GB in storage. The backuped maildirs are removed after the tar.
> 
> My assumption was, that the free diskspace should be bigger after that,
> but from what I get with df, it looks like I'm loosing space.
> 
> Currently the tgz is saved on the same disk/mountpoint.
> 
> Any hint, why removing the maildirs dont free diskspace as expected?
> 
> It is still an ext3 filesystme
The files might still be in use by some process and in that case the
space will not be freed until that process closes the files.

Try this:
lsof -nn|grep deleted

That shows all files that are still in use by a process but are marked
as deleted on the filesystem.

Regards,
 Dennis

On 10/20/2015 03:11 AM, G?tz Reinicke - IT Koordinator
wrote:
> My assumption was, that the free diskspace should be bigger after that,
> but from what I get with df, it looks like I'm loosing space.
>
> Currently the tgz is saved on the same disk/mountpoint.
There are a few things you should be measuring:

1: how much space does the maildir consume?
2: how much space does the backup tar.gz consume?
3: what is the growth rate of maildirs during the backup?

The growth rate is something you should monitor continuously.  The 
others you can, potentially, measure during the backup.  Call "df" and
"du -s /maildirpath" before the backup, and again after the archives
are
made, and again after the maildirs are removed.