Written 28 Aug 2026. This is a how-to, not a product card. Buy links are not tagged yet.

See which leftover-box folders are eating the disk

Before you buy a bigger drive or a NAS, ask which folders are taking the room.

The leftover box said the disk is getting full. You already looked with df. Now you want the next question: where did the room go? This is a look, not a shopping trip. You are not buying a NAS, a bigger laptop drive, or a tiny computer for this.

Skip until you looked at disk room

If you have not checked room yet, stop. That look is see if the leftover box still has room. From the couch, ask:

df -h

Point at the line that ends in /. If Use% is fine, skip this note. If phones and laptops cannot open the house folder, fix that first: when the house share disappeared, check the leftover box.

What this is

du is the leftover box reporting how much room each folder is using. You are asking one folder deep on the leftover-box disk, then reading the last line. The biggest folder is at the bottom. You are not installing a disk-space app, and you are not deleting anything yet.

Ask which folders are big

SSH in from the couch, then ask:

sudo du -xh -d 1 / 2>/dev/null | sort -h

This can take a minute on a leftover laptop. Let it finish. Do not buy anything while it runs. -x stays on the leftover-box disk, so a USB backup stick is not in this list. -d 1 means one folder deep. sort -h puts the smallest first, so the eater is last.

You should see lines like /home, /var, /usr, /srv. /usr is the OS. A few gigabytes there is normal. Do not delete it. /srv is the house folder from a file share on the leftover box. That number should match what see if the leftover box still has room already told you. /var is logs and leftover package downloads. /home is leftover-laptop Downloads and Trash if this box still has a desktop user.

Optional: look one folder deeper

If /var is the last line, look inside it:

sudo du -xh -d 1 /var 2>/dev/null | sort -h

Same idea for /home or /srv. Keep going one folder at a time. Do not jump into random rm.

If a folder is the eater

If /var is huge, clear leftover package downloads: clear old package downloads when the leftover disk is tight. Then trim old diary pages: clear old leftover-box logs when the disk is tight. If /srv is huge, that is the house folder doing its job. Copy it off: a backup of the leftover-box folder. Then delete only files you recognize from the share, not system folders. If /home is huge and this leftover is a laptop, empty Downloads and Trash from see if the leftover box still has room. Do not buy a NAS because a leftover laptop disk is small.

What next

Room check stays see if the leftover box still has room. One safe cleanup is clear old package downloads when the leftover disk is tight. Another is clear old leftover-box logs when the disk is tight. How big the leftover disk already is stays see how big the leftover box disk already is. A second copy is a backup of the leftover-box folder. Skip a new 4TB drive this weekend.

Skip

• Skip this note if disk room is fine.
• Skip a NAS for this look.
• Skip a new internal drive this weekend.
• Skip deleting /usr, /var, or /srv/share to "make room."
• Skip random rm -rf on system folders.
• Skip installing a disk-space app tonight.