NCDU

Ncdu (opens new window) is a disk usage analyzer that you can use to find space hogs in your lab.

Ncdu aims to be fast, simple and easy to use. It uses a ncurses interface, and should be able to run in any minimal POSIX-like environment with ncurses installed.

Although this guide for your lab, Ncdu is a useful tool even on regular desktop systems such as OS X and MacOS and Linux.

• Installation
• Usage
  • General usage
  • Analyse your root volume
  • Analyze specific volumes

Installation

Log into your lab and install ncdu using the following command:

sudo apt install ncdu

Usage

General usage

Start ncdu in the directory that you want to analyze:

ncdu

Depending on your volume sizes and number of files, the initial scanning may last from seconds to several minutes.

This is an example of a scan of a /mnt/work volume where the software (46GB) and workbench (23GB) folders take up most of your space.

Analyse your root volume

To find what's taking space on your root volume (/), use the -x paramter. This excludes other volumes mounted on your machine (such as /mnt/work):

ncdu -x /

Analyze specific volumes

You may use this example to analyze disk usage on specific volumes:

ncdu -x /mnt/archive