How to Fix the Hard Disk Size After Deleting Large Files?

written by sysadmin | 3 September 2025

I once deleted large files on my Linux server, but when I saw the disk size using the df -h command, it turned out that the hard disk size on the server had not changed.

 

Problem

How to fix the hard disk size after deleting large files?

 

Solution

I have a Linux server that has a hard disk size as shown below:

Initial Harddisk size

 

And you see the partition / only 17 percent left, and I want to delete large files on the server. After seeing in various partitions, I saw a large file in the log folder, as shown below:

The big file

 

And I did the command to delete the file. But after deletion, the size of the hard drive on the server is still the same as in the image above. After I find out the reason why the hard disk size has not changed, it turns out this is due to the deleted files still held open by a process commonly known as the zombie file. As a result, the system cannot release the disk space occupied by these files. Because these files are marked as deleted, the df and du commands cannot account for their space usage. So, to see files that are still open by a process, use the lsof command. If on your Linux server, there is no lsof package, use the commands below to install the lsof package:

RockyLinux/AlmaLinux/CentOS

dnf install lsof

 

Ubuntu/Debian

sudo apt update
sudo apt install lsof

 

Use the command below to see the deleted files still held open by a process:

lsof +L1

 

And in my case, it will look like in the image below:

The file(s) are still open by a process

 

After that, use the command to delete the files using the kill command based on the pid number, as shown in the image below:

kill -9 111119 119254 119255 119256

 

And the above command should delete the process that uses the PID number, as shown in the image below:

The files that we have deleted are no longer on the list

 

And if you run the df -h command,  the size of the hard disk on the Linux server should be reduced according to the size of the files that we deleted earlier, like in the image below:

The final hard disk size

 

Note

If, after you delete using a kill based on the PID number, but the size of the hard disk on the Linux server still hasn’t changed, then the server must be restarted, and after you restart the server, the size of the hard disk will correspond to the number of files you deleted earlier.

 

References

pietervogelaar.nl
howtoforge.com
access.redhat.com
alibabacloud.com