CPanel disk usage doesn't match size of my website (Filezilla)

[Splinterdog]

One of my websites is very basic indeed, with ten pages and about 50 images (average size 50-150KB) and I'm moving it to a new hosting plan with Godaddy next month. It's the one with unlimited domain hosting, to save money on multiple hosting plans.
Anyway, when I last did this, I simply downloaded a copy of the public_html directory, installed WPress and then uploaded that copy to the new hosting plan, overwriting the new files and editing certain config files to point to the right database etc. That all worked out fine last time with my other site.
The thing is, my public_html disk usage in CPanel (and a Wordpress plugin called Disk usage) is showing around 258MB, but when I download via FTP on Filezilla, it's showing a queue of around 1.7GB, even though I make a habit of deleting server-side backups once I've downloaded them and also by deleting unused or duplicate images.
I don't understand this at all, especially since the FTP download is taking forever. What would the simplest way of discovering the actual size of the public_html folder of a website?
I'm pretty sure that it can't be 1.7GB in my case.

 

[remixedcat]

Is it real CPanel and not godaddy's gimped knockoff? Godaddy is Nodaddy for anything. Terrible account control panel, they lie about usage, manipulate data to use against you, and do various file limitations to "unlimited" users like limit entry processes to something like 20 or even AS LOW AS 5!!! Try using a CMS that's not wordpress or joomla and it will fail and max and exceed your entry processes. Add more plugins and it will catastrophically crash. I had one of my sites (remixedcat.com) on there for a couple-three months and would hit tons of limits constantly. Switched to azure, than a private provider... Much better deal.

 

[silentbogo]

Maybe it's an issue with wordpress & caching? Had a similar issue on Digitalocean a few years back: clean ubuntu+PMA & WP worked fine until a few months later my disk space usage spiked and additionally I'd start getting daily RAM errors (mariaDB was allocating too much stuff and my blog was constantly down). Spent a few days reconfiguring PMA, disabling caching and optimizing memory footprint only to find out that WP itself was at fault.

 

[Splinterdog]

After several retries, the correct folder size appeared in Filezilla - less than 300MB - which was correct, so I've no idea where the 1.7GB came from.
Yes, it's probably a Godaddy-style CPanel and I'm on the so-called shared deluxe Linux hosting. I must say that I've really had no problems with their version of CPanel.

I've been with Godaddy for more than ten years and I've learned that the account set up can be very sneaky, especially in terms of renewals which will activate automatically if you don't disable auto-renew.
But at first glance, that aspect isn't very clear at all. I've now set all my products to cancel on X date, so that I can renew them manually. I've had instances where my PayPal account has been debited automatically, but that's partly because that's an option in PayPal itself.
Godaddy's chat operatives are always very eager to sell you more and take your money, but I'm aware of that and don't fall for their bs.
I also had an incident where CPU and RAM usage were hitting 100%, making each of my sites impossible to load. It was only by sheer accident that I managed to solve it - oddly enough by changing my CPanel passwords - something which Godaddy could offer no explanation for.
There was also an incident where they inserted a snippet of Javascript (Real User Metrics) without anyone's knowledge, slowing everything down. They later rescinded this policy, makinbg the default to OPT-IN rather than OPT-OUT.
On the whole, though, I've managed to work through the problems with them and currently, for my uses, they satisfy my needs. I am, however, always on the lookout for a new host, based on price/speed.

 

[sepheronx]

I use NDC Host: https://www.ndchost.com/

I've got no complaints at all and I've recommended them for years to others. I pay for a .CA account about $79USD per year. .com will be cheaper or if you got the domain already.