Server storage filling up overnight then decreasing?

[Lucidity]

I have been having a strange issue and I can't narrow down what's causing it.

Currently if I check my server storage, it's around 60-65% of 120GB but overnight, around the same time (2-3am), I get a "Disk usage warning" indicating that I am over 80% full. This was alarming the first time it happened, but I realized that when I check my storage in the morning at work, it is always 15-20% lower than what it says.

I receive this warning now every night around 2-3am, and it always warns me I am going over, so my storage is going up and down overnight I know the percentage I am checking in the morning isn't just wrong because I receive the warning every night around the same time, indicating I am going over and under the 80% notification threshold every night.

What could be causing this? Is it my provider? They're of little help. How can I see everything WHM/cPanel is doing overnight, to determine if something is updating or something, or something is happening at a set time to increase my disk space, then decrease it?

Thanks.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello,

Do you have backups enabled? If not, try to access the server around the time it's using the extra space to determine the source. We document how to check the disk space usage at:

How to Manage your Hard Drive Space - cPanel Knowledge Base - cPanel Documentation

Thank you.

 

[Lucidity]

Thanks for the link. I think that might be it, I was just concerned that it was going up sometimes 20% overnight then going back down. It must be to do with the back-up system.

I'll just make sure to keep an eye on when it gets close to 90-95% overnight.

 

[cPanelMichael]

Hello,

During the backup generation, temporary disk space usage occurs during the account packaging process. The data associated with the backup will exist in a temporary directory as it's archived into the .tar.gz file. One potential solution to avoid this problem is to use Incremental Backups. Incremental backups make use of hard links and thus less disk space is utilized after the initial backup.

Thank you.