Cannot find out what uses space in ZFS dataset

From: Andrea Venturoli <ml_at_netfence.it>
Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2025 10:10:23 UTC
Hello.

I've got a urgent trouble I'm trying to solve.
I need to take backups of a server: they should be around 4-5 GBs, but 
the end up close to 100GB!!!

The trouble is with the zroot/ROOT/default dataset:
> # cd /
> # du -d 0 -h -x
> 3.3G    .

Yet:
> root@chet:/ # zfs list|grep ROOT
> zroot/ROOT                     70.9G  1.94T    88K  none
> zroot/ROOT/default             70.9G  1.94T  62.1G  /

So ho do we go from 3.3G to 62.1G???
There are snapshots, but I'm using plain "zfs send", so they should not 
matter...



> # zfs get all zroot/ROOT/default
> NAME                PROPERTY               VALUE                     SOURCE
> zroot/ROOT/default  type                   filesystem                -
> zroot/ROOT/default  creation               Sun Dec 15 16:58 2019     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  used                   70.9G                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  available              1.94T                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  referenced             62.1G                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  compressratio          1.62x                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  mounted                yes                       -
> zroot/ROOT/default  quota                  none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  reservation            none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  recordsize             128K                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  mountpoint             /                         local
> zroot/ROOT/default  sharenfs               off                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  checksum               on                        default
> zroot/ROOT/default  compression            lz4                       inherited from zroot
> zroot/ROOT/default  atime                  off                       inherited from zroot
> zroot/ROOT/default  devices                on                        default
> zroot/ROOT/default  exec                   on                        default
> zroot/ROOT/default  setuid                 on                        default
> zroot/ROOT/default  readonly               off                       local
> zroot/ROOT/default  jailed                 off                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  snapdir                hidden                    default
> zroot/ROOT/default  aclmode                discard                   default
> zroot/ROOT/default  aclinherit             restricted                default
> zroot/ROOT/default  createtxg              8                         -
> zroot/ROOT/default  canmount               noauto                    local
> zroot/ROOT/default  xattr                  on                        default
> zroot/ROOT/default  copies                 1                         default
> zroot/ROOT/default  version                5                         -
> zroot/ROOT/default  utf8only               off                       -
> zroot/ROOT/default  normalization          none                      -
> zroot/ROOT/default  casesensitivity        sensitive                 -
> zroot/ROOT/default  vscan                  off                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  nbmand                 off                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  sharesmb               off                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  refquota               none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  refreservation         none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  guid                   13999796839276270198      -
> zroot/ROOT/default  primarycache           all                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  secondarycache         all                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  usedbysnapshots        8.76G                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  usedbydataset          62.1G                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  usedbychildren         0B                        -
> zroot/ROOT/default  usedbyrefreservation   0B                        -
> zroot/ROOT/default  logbias                latency                   default
> zroot/ROOT/default  objsetid               89                        -
> zroot/ROOT/default  dedup                  off                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  mlslabel               none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  sync                   standard                  default
> zroot/ROOT/default  dnodesize              legacy                    default
> zroot/ROOT/default  refcompressratio       1.56x                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  written                1.79M                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  logicalused            114G                      -
> zroot/ROOT/default  logicalreferenced      96.6G                     -
> zroot/ROOT/default  volmode                default                   default
> zroot/ROOT/default  filesystem_limit       none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  snapshot_limit         none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  filesystem_count       none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  snapshot_count         none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  snapdev                hidden                    default
> zroot/ROOT/default  acltype                nfsv4                     default
> zroot/ROOT/default  context                none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  fscontext              none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  defcontext             none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  rootcontext            none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  relatime               on                        default
> zroot/ROOT/default  redundant_metadata     all                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  overlay                on                        default
> zroot/ROOT/default  encryption             off                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  keylocation            none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  keyformat              none                      default
> zroot/ROOT/default  pbkdf2iters            0                         default
> zroot/ROOT/default  special_small_blocks   0                         default
> zroot/ROOT/default  snapshots_changed      Thu Sep 18 12:00:02 2025  -
> zroot/ROOT/default  prefetch               all                       default
> zroot/ROOT/default  autobackup:auto_zroot  true                      inherited from zroot



usedbydataset is 62.1G!!!
Where can this come from if du says 3.3???



  bye & Thanks
	av.