Large Tar File Size

[d-woo]

I have an average website...one database, 8 swf (Flash files), 3 email accounts, and I performed a cPanel backup to remote Server via SCP.

The file was 805MB.

What could be the reason for this?

[lostinspace]

Could be wrong file ownerships (nobody) on certain files. This would cause cpanel (on the front page) to report incorrect disk usage but you would notice the bulk in an archive backup or under the disk usage icon.

What does the disk usage icon reveal in cpanel?

[ramprage]

If you have Urchin running its known for creating massive log files in the users /tmp directory.
cd /home/username
du -hc --max-depth=1

That will tell you how much space each directory is using for the particular user giving you a better idea.

[d-woo]

Thanks guys!

cpanel showed: 697MB disk usage

the du -hc --max-depth=1 showed:

134M    ./mail
8.0k    ./public_ftp
708M    ./public_html
24M     ./tmp
352k    ./etc
16k     ./.htpasswds
72k     ./.neomail-johndoe1
28k     ./.neomail-johndoe2
4.9M    ./.spamassassin
44k     ./.cpanel-datastore
28k     ./.neomail-info
890M    .
890M    total

90MB of the 134MB of the email was in the SpamAssassin SpamBox (before Mail Scanner was added)

550MB of the 708MB in public_html were Flash video files.