Is 90 GB 'other' typical? Plus performance issues...

[Hustler]

I have a MBP late 2010, 250GB HD running Yosemite 10.10.4, and like the title says, I have quite a bit of other space IMO. Is 90 too much? Just right?

I've been having some performance issues, lots of beach balling, bouncing apps when opening, lagging keyboard strokes etc. One of the first things to check I've found from some online researching this is make sure the hard drive isn't full. Mine was, I had about 2GB free space! At first the 'other' space was almost all the way to max, 249 gb. I found some info about re indexing that meter, did so, now shows a more realistic break down of all my storage. 90 other, 42 audio, 30 photos, 25 movies, 20 apps, .6 backups.

I've done some mild house cleaning, moving some random go pro movies off to the portable hard drive. Just did it, hard to tell if its really helped yet. Some days of use will tell. I now have 40 GB free space.

Any other advice on things to try for performance benefits?
And like I asked before, is 90 GB 'other' too much?
Thanks for any advice!
Brad

 

[maflynn]

Do you have time machine enabled? Much of the "other" could be local snapshots.

Download and use OmniDiskSweeper. It will provide a sorted list of what's consuming your space.

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.

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Another option is to use this terminal command
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

I prefer to redirect it to a text file (this puts it in your Documents folder
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g / > ~/Documents/du.txt

Like the sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper command, it will scan all directories, but produce a text file as opposed to showing the results in a window

 

[Weaselboy]

And like I asked before, is 90 GB 'other' too much?

Nobody can really answer this for you. Other is everything that is not included in the remaining categories, like the OS itself and your personal documents. On a new install Other would be something around 20GB. So if you have around 70GB of items not in those other categories, you are in good shape.

The other problem is (particularly in Yosemite and El Capitan) is that storage readout seems to be completely screwed up. The Spotlight reindex seems to fix it for a while, but then it drifts again. For example right now mine says I have about 1GB of photos, but my photos library is 8GB. Totally off.

If still think things are off, try out that Terminal command maflynn gave you and post the results here for us to take a look.

If you have that much free space now and you are seeing the really slow app launchs and KB typing hangs still, that sounds more like a failing drive.

 

[Hustler]

Do you have time machine enabled? Much of the "other" could be local snapshots.

Download and use OmniDiskSweeper. It will provide a sorted list of what's consuming your space.

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.

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Another option is to use this terminal command
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

I prefer to redirect it to a text file (this puts it in your Documents folder
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g / > ~/Documents/du.txt

Like the sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper command, it will scan all directories, but produce a text file as opposed to showing the results in a window

I do have time machine enabled...Should I be doing something different to save disk space? I keep back ups on a separate external hard drive.

Can I use that program and NOT run it in terminal command prompts? I am clueless about doing command prompt type stuff and have heard if you aren't sure what you're doing, don't even start because you can do more harm than good. I appreciate the suggestion though, I will run that program if it will help!

Nobody can really answer this for you. Other is everything that is not included in the remaining categories, like the OS itself and your personal documents. On a new install Other would be something around 20GB. So if you have around 70GB of items not in those other categories, you are in good shape.

The other problem is (particularly in Yosemite and El Capitan) is that storage readout seems to be completely screwed up. The Spotlight reindex seems to fix it for a while, but then it drifts again. For example right now mine says I have about 1GB of photos, but my photos library is 8GB. Totally off.

If still think things are off, try out that Terminal command maflynn gave you and post the results here for us to take a look.

If you have that much free space now and you are seeing the really slow app launchs and KB typing hangs still, that sounds more like a failing drive.

I definitely don't have 70 gb worth of personal documents, unless like maflynn hinted may be a pile up of local snapshots from time machine.

I tried another re index and it's very off again, showed it all as other, then slowly split it up evenly from other to all the other categories as well.

I may have to learn how to use terminal command by the sound of it, once I do I'll share the results.

Let's hope my ol HDD is not starting to die!!

 

[Weaselboy]

I definitely don't have 70 gb worth of personal documents, unless like maflynn hinted may be a pile up of local snapshots from time machine.

Time Machine local snapshots are not shown in Other. They are shown in that Backups section you mentioned has .6GB.

I tried another re index and it's very off again, showed it all as other, then slowly split it up evenly from other to all the other categories as well.

That is because you were looking at the storage readout while the Spotlight reindex was in progress and is normal. Then when it finished the readout showed the other categories.

I may have to learn how to use terminal command by the sound of it, once I do I'll share the results.

Let's hope my ol HDD is not starting to die!!

This is fairly easy. Just go to /Applications/Utilities and launch Terminal app. Then copy and paste in the command below maflynn gave you. Then hit the return key and you will be prompted for your admin password. Once that is entered just let it sit there a couple minutes until the command completes. Then copy and paste the results here for us to have a look.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

 

[Hustler]

Time Machine local snapshots are not shown in Other. They are shown in that Backups section you mentioned has .6GB.




That is because you were looking at the storage readout while the Spotlight reindex was in progress and is normal. Then when it finished the readout showed the other categories.



This is fairly easy. Just go to /Applications/Utilities and launch Terminal app. Then copy and paste in the command below maflynn gave you. Then hit the return key and you will be prompted for your admin password. Once that is entered just let it sit there a couple minutes until the command completes. Then copy and paste the results here for us to have a look.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

Do you have time machine enabled? Much of the "other" could be local snapshots.

Download and use OmniDiskSweeper. It will provide a sorted list of what's consuming your space.

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.

sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper

Another option is to use this terminal command
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

I prefer to redirect it to a text file (this puts it in your Documents folder
sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g / > ~/Documents/du.txt

Like the sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper command, it will scan all directories, but produce a text file as opposed to showing the results in a window

I finally got some free time with this computer to run this scan on. I did the version that puts it in a txt file, below is the copy pasted:


1 /.DocumentRevisions-V100
1 /.fseventsd
1 /.MobileBackups
1 /.Spotlight-V100
0 /.Trashes
0 /.vol
7 /Applications
1 /bin
0 /cores
1 /dev
1 /home
5 /Library
1 /net
0 /Network
5 /private
1 /sbin
6 /System
168 /Users
1 /usr
1 /Volumes
190 /
190 total





=====
Does this show anything that means anything?

 

[Weaselboy]

I finally got some free time with this computer to run this scan on. I did the version that puts it in a txt file, below is the copy pasted:
=====
Does this show anything that means anything?

I'm not seeing anything there that points to a problem.

Now that you have freed up about 40GB, are you still being the bouncing apps and laggy keyboard you mentioned? If you are, that really does sound consistent with a failing drive. Less common, but a failing drive cable can cause this also.

 

[Hustler]

I'm not seeing anything there that points to a problem.

Now that you have freed up about 40GB, are you still being the bouncing apps and laggy keyboard you mentioned? If you are, that really does sound consistent with a failing drive. Less common, but a failing drive cable can cause this also.

Not much (but still some) keyboard lag...it did seem to improve.
However, I still have slow laggy app loads, beach ball spin when doing 'system' type things like clicking the apple logo, and bouncing apps in the launch tray.

 

[Weaselboy]

Not much (but still some) keyboard lag...it did seem to improve.
However, I still have slow laggy app loads, beach ball spin when doing 'system' type things like clicking the apple logo, and bouncing apps in the launch tray.

Yup.... bad drive or bad drive cable is my bet.

I am assuming here this just started on its own and was not a result of you installing or changing anything.