Fluctuating HD space. Really aggravating

[Mattwmo]

For starters, my computer is a 2007 MacBook pro with 2.2ghz, 2gigs of ram, on version 10.5.8

The computer is older and is not running lion, which I think might be a source for some of my problems. Basically, my free space has been dwindling for no apparent reason. I reluctantly decided to dump a few games and freed up 30 gigs of space, which I thought would last me a long time considering I hardly download anything anymore. Yesterday I started work on a video project, meaning I was taking pictures and video on my camera and syncing it through my computer to my iPad almost a dozen times. Sure enough, at the end of the day, I had literally zero kb of free space. So everyone knows, each video was no more than 100 mb, and I had about ten total, so I am pretty sure that is not the problem.

I have since deleted files but it doesn't clear any space, I'm assuming because every available byte goes to improving performance. I even moved ALL of my documents to an external HD, about 20 gigs if I remember correctly, and nothing has improved. I have used the get info function to see how much music, videos, docs, etc. are taking up and it isn't significant: everything big is already on my external harddrive. If anyone has any ideas of how I can see memory allocation, or of how I can fix this, please let me know! I appreciate it!

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Take a look at DiskInventory X (will not work in Mac OS X 10.7 Lion), OmniDiskSweeper, JDisk Report or GrandPerspective to see where your HDD space went to.

MacBook, MacBook Pro: Replacing the Hard Disk Drive, transferring data to the new HDD​

How to format a new HDD/SSD to install Mac OS X or make a bootable copy onto​

Btw, not running Lion is probably not the source of the problem, as many have had more problems with Lion than with Leopard or Snow Leopard upon its release.

 

[IC3D]

I had a problem like this... check your Library/Mail folders for a mess of emails being repeated.

 

[bliss monkey]

My problem is somewhat different.
I just installed a 128GB Samsung 830 SSD in my Mac Pro 2011 12 core in the optical bay.

I formatted it using 'Partition' (just 1) and GUID option as recommended. (I also tried simple 'Erase' formatting)

I used Carbon Copy Cloner to copy everything from the original HDD except the User files as recommended elsewhere. The OS is Lion 10.7.4

There were about 96GB copied over of system and applications (and beefy application support files for FC Studio and other video/audio apps), leaving about 32 GB theoretically free.

However, on booting from the SSD, I get an "Your boot disk is almost full" message. Checking the SSD with Disk Utility shows wild and weird fluctuations in 'Available' space from as little as 24mb to as much as 32GB!! It changes without having any applications open and seems to skip about merrily on its own whenever I select the SSD from the Disk Utility List.

The SSD boots in about 45 seconds from chime to log in. Not as fast as people report or as my laptop with SSD. (but still better than the HDD which took a minute and a half. Calls to Apple about that resolved nothing)

I don't think it has anything to to with Time Machine as it is disabled and Lion apparently does not make copies on the boot drive on Mac Pro's when TM can't find the back up disc as is apparently the case on MacBook Pros.

Anyway, can anyone figure out what might be causing this? 30GB+ variations in free space is certainly not normal and 25% free space (if working properly) should be more than adequate for a SSD, no?