du command

http://www.cyberciti.biz/tips/linux-unix-du-command-examples.html

du command Examples

Type du to display usage in current directory :
$ du

Pass -h option to display output in Byte, Kilobyte, Megabyte, Gigabyte, Terabyte and Petabyte (Human-readable output)
$ du -h

Display the name and size of each png file in the /ramdisk/figs/ directory as well as a total for all of the pngs:
$ du -hc /ramdisk/figs/*.png

Another useful option is -c which produce a grand total:
$ du -c

Show the disk usage of the /home/vivek subdirectory:
$ du /home/vivek

Show only a summary of the disk usage of the /home/vivek
$ du -hs /home/vivek

Exclude files that match PATTERN. For example do not count *.obj or *.jpg files:

$ du -h --exclude='*.obj'
$ du -h --exclude='*.jpg'
A PATTERN is a shell pattern (not a regular perl or other expression). The pattern ? matches any one character, whereas * matches any string.

Pipes and filters with du

Now display everything sorted by filesize:
$ du -sk .[A-z]* *| sort -n

Display screenful output at a time as du generate more output than can fit on the console / screen:
$ du -h | less

To find top 3 directories, enter :
$ cd /chroot
$ du -sk * | sort -nr | head -3

4620348 var
651972  home
27896   usr
21384   lib64

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