Tableau - Extract Size on Disk 100x Larger than Stats for Space Usage Admin Viz Shows

Question

I was going to update from 10.4 to 10.5.3 when I noticed that the HDD on which Tableau was installed was nearly full - 115GB out of 127GB had been consumed. I ran tabadmin cleaning and it's currently at 110GB.

I looked to check what was using up the space and saw that "T:Program FilesTableauTableau Serverdatatabsvcdataengineextract" was taking over 100GB. All datasource extracts total roughly 900MB, according to the "Stats for Space Usage" across all sites. Adding certain workbooks that have been saved as.TWBX files since the total size of all sites is less than 1GB.

Please explain the reason for this disparity.
What is taking up this space?
What's the best way for me to reclaim this space?

I was going to update from 10.4 to 10.5.3 when I noticed that the HDD on which Tableau was installed was nearly full - 115GB out of 127GB had been consumed. I ran tabadmin cleaning and it's currently at 110GB.

I looked to check what was using up the space and saw that "T:Program FilesTableauTableau Serverdatatabsvcdataengineextract" was taking over 100GB. All datasource extracts total roughly 900MB, according to the "Stats for Space Usage" across all sites. Adding certain workbooks that have been saved as.TWBX files since the total size of all sites is less than 1GB.

Please explain the reason for this disparity.

What is taking up this space?

What's the best way for me to reclaim this space?

I'm deferring my upgrading till I have enough room to ensure that it doesn't fail. I'm also worried about the server crashing if it runs out of space - I'm pleased I noticed this problem early!!

I used the following commands after the first tabadmin cleaning, but they didn't help:

1. tabadmin cleanup
2. tabadmin stop
3. tabadmin clearcache
4. tabadmin cleanup
5. tabadmin start

Answer 1

This might be due to a variety of factors –

1. All log files are erased from Tableau Server when you execute tabadmin cleanup while it is stopped

ProgramData\Tableau\Tableau Server\data\tabsvc\logs

but not from

ProgramData\Tableau\Tableau Server\logs

2. It's possible that the backup created during the update took up some space. They frequently take up a significant amount of space. (I believe this is the problem)

3. Try searching with .tsbak in Tableau folder

EDIT:

When you run tabadmin cleanup whilst running Tableau Server

4. Active logs and log files from ProgramData\Tableau\Tableau Server\logs are not removed.

5. Temporary files are not removed.

6. Files that are in use (that is, locked by the operating system) are not removed.

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