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Apple developers must hate Math, miscalculated my disk space.

Blackberryroid

Blackberryroid

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 8, 2012
588
0
/private/var/vm/
I guess Apple developers hated Math when they were studying, because a simple mathematical computation went wrong.

I went to the root of my drive and checked the get-info of every folder in there. I did the math, it says 108 GB. Mac OS X reports that I ate 116 GB of disk space.

Don't you just hate it when your disk space gets reported wrong?
 
Maybe its like the hard drive capacity thing.

Like if you have ~128 GB (advertised on the box) but you're only getting ~119 GB (GiB) useable space (as in what you see in the computer).

If you calculate it:

~116 GB is equal to ~108 GB (GiB).
 
tjcad said:
Maybe its like the hard drive capacity thing.

Like if you have ~128 GB (advertised on the box) but you're only getting ~119 GB (GiB) useable space (as in what you see in the computer).

If you calculate it:

~116 GB is equal to ~108 GB (GiB).
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure that all the Get-info boxes has the same value of GB. The get-info box of the whole HDD says 116. When I crack it open, get info every folder and file in there and add them all, it would say 108 GB.

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robbieduncan said:
Did you include the hidden folder the Finder does not show?
Click to expand...

I'm sure if there is a hidden folder, it wouldn't weigh 8 GB.
 
I'm gonna hazard a guess and say your disk space isn't miscalculated and you have either overlooked something or there is a reasonable explanation (other than Apple developers hating maths)
 
Blackberryroid said:
Don't you just hate it when your disk space gets reported wrong?
Click to expand...

Don't you just hate it when people's ego won't let them conclude they don't understand how OSX reports disk space and they opt for the least likely explanation that Apple programmers can't write code that adds correctly, then they start a thread about it.

EDIT: Don't you just really hate it when someone is given an explanation, they dismiss it because if contradicts their initial, incorrect, explanation?
 
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My hidden Library folder weighs in at 41 GB, so it could definitely account for that discrepancy. The developers are not going to make a math blunder of that magnitude.
 
Why not use OmniDiskSweeper

Personally, I think apple devs probably got it right, when I have to manually tally something up and it differs from the automated number its usually me that caused the discrepancy

As others stated there are hidden files that are not normally accessible within finder and so if you fail to account for them, such as /private, /etc, /Network etc etc your count will be off.
 
All these stuff should be added up by the computer automatically. If there is a discrepancy, I believe it is more likely due to you overlooking something, rather than a developer misprogramming something.
 
Two things:

- Sometimes weird things do happen. I recently deleted all the files off an external drive in order to re-purpose it for Time Machine backups. Finder reported I had over 1 million files to delete. I confirmed, and the progress bar started up and a numerical countdown started to do it's business. When all was said and done, the bar filled, but the countdown had long ago passed through zero, and I had deleted my original 1 million files, and an additional negative 41 thousand files. I understand magnitudes of error in estimates, but that's about 4%, which I think means something got mucked somewhere.

- You should use the inspector when looking at multiple folders. Let OS X do the math for you. Just right click a folder, when the pop up comes up, hold option key, you'll see 'get info' change to 'inspector'. Go nuts.
 
Blackberryroid said:
I'm sure if there is a hidden folder, it wouldn't weigh 8 GB.
Click to expand...

As some folders are hidden on the root of a system volume, it can amount to 8 GB (sleepimage + swap files for example).

Here is a little explanation of what directories reside in the root of a system volume.

In other words, Apple developers programming Mac OS X did their math, especially since it is done automatically.

To find out, where you storage capacity is being used, you can use the following free applications:
Maybe try a combination of several, if you still can't find the "missing" capacity.

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating up my space? by theSeb
 
simsaladimbamba said:
As some folders are hidden on the root of a system volume, it can amount to 8 GB (sleepimage + swap files for example).

Here is a little explanation of what directories reside in the root of a system volume.

In other words, Apple developers programming Mac OS X did their math, especially since it is done automatically.

To find out, where you storage capacity is being used, you can use the following free applications:
Maybe try a combination of several, if you still can't find the "missing" capacity.

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating up my space? by theSeb
Click to expand...

I am aware of that, I already deleted the SleepImage file.
 
maflynn said:
Through the terminal
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0


Also to disable local Time Machine backups
sudo tmutil disablelocal
Click to expand...

What happens when I run out of battery? And what about the Time Machine, I don't have any time machine selected storage. In fact, I have never touched time machine before.
 
Then you don't need to worry about disabling local Time Machine backups ;)

I'm not sure I understand your question. Changing the hibernate mode is needed if you no longer want to use the sleepimage.
 
maflynn said:
Then you don't need to worry about disabling local Time Machine backups ;)

I'm not sure I understand your question. Changing the hibernate mode is needed if you no longer want to use the sleepimage.
Click to expand...

Doesn't the computer hibernate when you run out of battery? Did I get that wrong?
 
If you have never touched TM - are you saying you have no backups running?

TM creates local copies on the drive. I cleared a couple of GB just running the above tmutil command.
 
Blackberryroid said:
I am aware of that, I already deleted the SleepImage file.
Click to expand...

Blackberryroid said:
Doesn't the computer hibernate when you run out of battery? Did I get that wrong?
Click to expand...

It won't go into deep sleep if you
1. Delete the SleepImage file (provided it doesn't spontaneously recreate it),
2. Disable deep sleep by way of the terminal.

tbh, I'm not totally sure what will happen as I don't disable deep sleep.

As for backups, I'd seriously looking at doing them - too many threads where users lose some of their data, i.e., iPhoto library, iTunes library etc and are without a backup
 
Last edited:
As above - it's a big risk not doing backups. I've seen it all too often where users loose data due to poor backup plans. Not a great idea.

Personally, I wouldn't bother disabling sleep. It's such a useful feature.

Are you running out of disk space?
 
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