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Disk filling up at the speed of light

A

Avery1

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 14, 2010
138
12
I have a 27" Late 2015 5k iMac with a 512GB SSD, running El Cap OS X 10.11.6. This evening, I received a warning that the startup disk had filled up. Upon poking around, I saw that there was maybe 200GB Apps an 230GB Other being used. As soon as I deleted a 20GB VM, the space disappeared shortly after. I eventually deleted a 50GB VM, and using df -h, I could see the space going from 91% -> 92% -> 93%... at a pace of about 1% every few seconds.

I immediately shutdown the computer, knowing I didn't have long to perform a reboot before the disk was full again, and not knowing what that might lead to.

After bootup, the disk was at 40% utilization, and the space consumed included 200GB Apps, but no 'Other'. I have about 200GB in random files in my home directory, and only about 35GB in applications installed.

Does anyone know if this is a bug or some malicious software on my machine?

Thanks!
 
Might not necessarily be anything malicious, just badly coded apps. I constantly find I have to delete hidden files that have accumulated in root directories, just this week I trashed 300Gb of hidden data where somehow Time Machine backup data had ended up on my startup disk somehow in a hidden directory(?), I've had data syncs redirect to my startup disk when the destination couldn't be found resulting in the startup disk filling up etc, etc..

Anyway, try https://daisydiskapp.com
It'll help you visualise where all the space is going.
 
Download and use OmniDiskSweeper. It will provide a sorted list of what's consuming your space. I like this app as it provides a display that makes more sense then the other apps.

If you run it with sudo (As shown below), it will include some system files that it woud not normally have access to scan. That is a more accurate representation of what's consuming your drive.
Code: 
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
 
Any chance you are using Time Machine which hoards backups onboard until such time as you hook up your external drive and all the iMac to back up? Major problem with TM and why I opt for cloning on a weekly basis.
 
nambuccaheadsau said:
Any chance you are using Time Machine which hoards backups onboard until such time as you hook up your external drive and all the iMac to back up? Major problem with TM and why I opt for cloning on a weekly basis.
Click to expand...
Doesn't that just happen on laptops?
 
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maflynn said:
Doesn't that just happen on laptops?
Click to expand...
Correct... now with High Sierra and APFS it does local snapshots on all Macs, but prior to that local snapshots was only enabled on Mac portables. OP's iMac with El Capitan would not have any local snapshots.
 
Weaselboy said:
Correct... now with High Sierra and APFS it does local snapshots on all Macs, but prior to that local snapshots was only enabled on Mac portables. OP's iMac with El Capitan would not have any local snapshots.
Click to expand...
Ah thanks for the clarification. I have HS on my iMac but I cannot install APFS on my Samsung T3, for some reason it does not give me the option to convert the filesystem.
 
maflynn said:
Ah thanks for the clarification. I have HS on my iMac but I cannot install APFS on my Samsung T3, for some reason it does not give me the option to convert the filesystem.
Click to expand...

Do you see this option in DU?

Screen Shot 2017-12-29 at 7.08.36 AM.png
 
Mike Boreham said:
Now I have HS volumes on Samsung T3 as APFS but I formatted them as APFS (encrypted) before installing or cloning onto them.
Click to expand...
Maybe I'll try that later tomorrow, back it up, boot off the cloned image and start from scratch
 
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