Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Internal drive suddenly full - how?

A

ashley

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 24, 2006
66
0
So I've poked around my computer and through the Macrumors archives but can't seem to find any answers, so maybe one of you have had this problem?

I have a 100 gig internal harddrive, and as far as I can tell I should only be using about 60 or so gigs of space - 20 for pictures, 20 for music, another 20-odd for other stuff. Maybe a little less.

But my computer started running really slow today so I checked the hard drive space and I'm up to 80+ of used space, but I'm not sure how I got there.

The only thing that's different is that I got an external hard drive for Christmas and backed up with Time Machine.



Soooooo ...


I guess there might be a really easy answer to this, but how I can figure out what's using up an extra 20 gigs of space? I want it back!

Thanks in advance ...

Ashley
 
My suggestion is to check /private/var/vm.

It's more then likely tied up in virtual memory. Do you get the space back if you reboot?
 
could be a run away log or something like that ... might want to check to see if if there are any 1GB+ files on the drive.

However if you did an archive and install of leopard, that old tiger folder can be burning up 10-14GB of space.
 
Eidorian - No, I don't get the space back when I reboot. :(

Sun Baked - Yeah, I remember seeing it was larger after getting it back with Leopard (it crashed, they recovered my data and added on Leopard while it was there), but this is above and beyond. Stupid question, but how do I check for files by size?

Thank you both for your quick replies!

Ashley
 
WildPalms - Yeah, I thought for a moment I might have just accidentally copied some files or that Time Machine was backing up files to my internal while it wasn't connected to Time Machine, but the loss of space it too big for that, especially since I haven't done anything beside viewing photos and streaming video today.
 
Okay ... trying to download either one of those recommended programs ... is there a reason why my computer would recognize and lable those files as .exe Quicktime files instead of disk images? And not open them? Arg!
 
ashley said:
Okay ... trying to download either one of those recommended programs ... is there a reason why my computer would recognize and lable those files as .exe Quicktime files instead of disk images? And not open them? Arg!
Click to expand...
What browser are you using?
 
Awesome ... works in Safari. Weird.

Okay, so - Disk Inventory running down.
 
Okay, I guess I had about 8 gigs more pictures than I thought ... 4.5 of which were from PhotoBooth (wow). And then there's the 6.7 gigs under Previous Systems. Can I get rid of that?
 
Great. Thank you for all your help - I'm going to partition my drive and start transferring some pictures over so I'll have some extra space.

Thanks again!

Ashley
 
Please read before partitioning

Before you partition: If you use iDisk (.Mac) syncing then it is very likely that the size of the local iDisk has grown out of proportion. A search in the Apple support forums will confirm the extent and severity of the problem.

The only extant solution is to turn off iDisk syncing and delete the local iDisk mirror, which is a "Sparse Bundle" located somewhere in your /User/Library/FileSync folder.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back