Losing SSD space for no reason

Jonny Craig · Dec 31, 2012, 04:29 AM

When I look at my storage space it will randomly drop throughout the day. A few hours ago it was at 76.9 and now it's at 76.82 and I haven't downloaded anything. Just been using Safari.

What could be causing this? Even though it's not a lot of space I'm losing won't it accrue over time and become a problem?

Weaselboy · Dec 31, 2012, 09:44 AM

Do you have Time Machine turned on? It creates temporary local backups that use some space.

Also, Safari creates a "cache" of web sites you have browsed, so just normal browsing will eat up some space like that.

moral-hazard · Dec 31, 2012, 11:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Weaselboy

Do you have Time Machine turned on? It creates temporary local backups that use some space.

Also, Safari creates a "cache" of web sites you have browsed, so just normal browsing will eat up some space like that.

Opening a terminal and running the following command will turn off the local backups:

Quote:

sudo tmutil disablelocal

If you don't do that, your machine will basically fill up all of its free disk space. I'd recommend turning off local backups and using an external disk to make your time machine backups.

----------

Also of note, the amount of space you saw disappearing is pretty minimal. Even if you aren't "doing" much of anything on the machine, programs may be writing to the disk. I wouldn't consider this to be a problem unless the free space decreases more significantly.

Weaselboy · Dec 31, 2012, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by moral-hazard

Opening a terminal and running the following command will turn off the local backups:

If you don't do that, your machine will basically fill up all of its free disk space. I'd recommend turning off local backups and using an external disk to make your time machine backups.

There really is no need to turn it off. If the space used by local backups is needed by the user, OS X will shrink the local backup space on its own.

It can be a useful feature for restoring accidentally deleted data when away from a Time Machine drive.

You can turn Time Machine off then back on to zero out the space if you want.

Jonny Craig · Dec 31, 2012, 11:56 AM

Very strange, turned my computer off last night and turned it on this morning and now I have 77.24 GB. So somehow I gained space

Also time machine is turned off

TheRealDamager · Dec 31, 2012, 12:22 PM

You don't need to watch it that closely - OSX will use small amounts here and there.

Dec 31, 2012, 04:29 AM	#1
Jonny Craig macrumors newbie Join Date: Dec 2012	Losing SSD space for no reason When I look at my storage space it will randomly drop throughout the day. A few hours ago it was at 76.9 and now it's at 76.82 and I haven't downloaded anything. Just been using Safari. What could be causing this? Even though it's not a lot of space I'm losing won't it accrue over time and become a problem?
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Dec 31, 2012, 09:44 AM	#2
Weaselboy macrumors 604 Join Date: Jan 2005	Do you have Time Machine turned on? It creates temporary local backups that use some space. Also, Safari creates a "cache" of web sites you have browsed, so just normal browsing will eat up some space like that.
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Dec 31, 2012, 11:56 AM	#5
Jonny Craig Thread Starter macrumors newbie Join Date: Dec 2012	Very strange, turned my computer off last night and turned it on this morning and now I have 77.24 GB. So somehow I gained space Also time machine is turned off
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Dec 31, 2012, 12:22 PM	#6
TheRealDamager macrumors 6502a Join Date: Jan 2011	You don't need to watch it that closely - OSX will use small amounts here and there.
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