HDD Capacity Question -New HDD 74.2GB - Used 18.4GB WHY????

[mikeiza]

I just formatted my Macbook that was given to me by my girlfriend and after the installation I check the disk utlity and found out that my 80GB is actually 74.2 GB and Available disk has 55.8GB remaining. Currently the used HD space is 18.4GB

I am wondering that I just freshly installed the OSX and it used up 18.4GB already? She told me she bought it in Macmall website with preloaded parallels and Windows Vista. I didn't like the way Macmall install the Vista so I reformatted the whole HDD wasnt expecting to have 18.4GB used already? Am I doing something wrong? Please help!

 

[mkrishnan]

Did you re-partition the disk as a single HFS partition before you reformatted it?

With respect to the 74.2GB, that is the correct formatted capacity of the drive (because hard drives are measured in 1 million bytes per megabyte, not 1024^2 bytes).

With respect to the 18 gigs already used, this is high if you clean installed OS X. If you installed OS X, iLife, and all the other pre-installed software that came with the MacBook, it still sounds slightly high to me. iLife is big -- iWeb, iMovie, and Garageband particularly are something like 4-5 gigs altogether. About 5 more for OS X itself. But 8 more in other stuff sounds surprising.

 

[mikeiza]

Did you re-partition the disk as a single HFS partition before you reformatted it?

With respect to the 74.2GB, that is the correct formatted capacity of the drive (because hard drives are measured in 1 million bytes per megabyte, not 1024^2 bytes).

With respect to the 18 gigs already used, this is high if you clean installed OS X. If you installed OS X, iLife, and all the other pre-installed software that came with the MacBook, it still sounds slightly high to me. iLife is big -- iWeb, iMovie, and Garageband particularly are something like 4-5 gigs altogether. About 5 more for OS X itself. But 8 more in other stuff sounds surprising.

Ok i'm a newbie, so I will just use disk utility for format it as HFS? I am using Mac OS Extended Journaled as my format. Am i doing something wrong?

 

[MacDonaldsd]

You have to remember that the Operating System and the applications take up a lot of space.

 

[CanadaRAM]

Get DeLocalizer from www.versiontracker.com and delete foreign language resources. That'll save a Gb or so.

Do you use Garageband? Deleting it and its loops will save another 2 Gb.

What printer(s) do you have? Deleting unused printer drivers can save up to 500 Mb.

Remember the OS uses 1 - 4 Gb on the drive for swap file space.

 

[Muncher]

From experience, XP I believe is about 8 gigs...

Delete Garageband?! The horror

 

[mkrishnan]

Remember the OS uses 1 - 4 Gb on the drive for swap file space.

This is true, but I thought that the swap file, journaling resources, and maybe spotlight directory do not show up in the usage statistics for the drive. I thought this is part of why it was necessary to retain 20-25% free space on an OS X drive.

 

[mikeiza]

I reformatted the HD AGAIN by booting up using the OSX Disc 1. Before installing OSX, I used the disk utlity came with it and ZERO OUT DELETED FILES everything before installing the OSX. After that process it showed me that I have a 74.2GB and I am ready to install OSX. The process took awhile and currently I am typing on this computer with default OSX applications that came with the CD. So how do I delete Garageband? How much space is the trial version of MS Office? Here's a screenshot of my disk utility. Thanks to all of you for helping me!

 

[Cromulent]

You need to do a custom install of OS X and ditch all the unnecessary languages and unwanted applications etc.

 

[mikeiza]

You need to do a custom install of OS X and ditch all the unnecessary languages and unwanted applications etc.

how can I custom install? When I boot up from Disc1, it never asked me custom the installation

 

[mikeiza]

Thanks CANADARAM

I used delocalizer and saved me 3.1GB now my Used space is 15GB, can you guys help me how to custom install this OSX? I basically don't want Garageband, Iworks, and Microsoft Office trial. It will save me some time deleting it. Thanks!!!
405,359 files found down to 127,410 files now. Wow those foreign stuffs are way too big!!

Here's some screenshots: