Lion's Storage indicator

[omro]

Hi,

I purchased a brand new MacBook Pro and waited for Lion until I started using it. I upgraded and then I added my photos and iTunes libraries from my old PC. I plugged in my iPhone and iPad and let them update and backup/sync with the new computer. I looked at the storage indicator in About This Mac. Apparently I'm using 75gb of "other" any ideas what's taking up so much space? It can't all be the operating system!

Thanks

 

[natd1993]

Hi,

I purchased a brand new MacBook Pro and waited for Lion until I started using it. I upgraded and then I added my photos and iTunes libraries from my old PC. I plugged in my iPhone and iPad and let them update and backup/sync with the new computer. I looked at the storage indicator in About This Mac. Apparently I'm using 75gb of "other" any ideas what's taking up so much space? It can't all be the operating system!

Thanks

Its probably a mixture of the OS system files, and other files that the system profiler can't define e.g. iPhone Apps/Books etc.

 

[iThinkergoiMac]

It also looks like plain old documents don't have their own section.

 

[ivahardy]

Does anyone have any ideas as to where that 65.8GB of backups is residing, i've got 30 odd gigs on my MBP but i have everything backed up on externals.

I Want my 30GB back damn it!!

 

[Amberfool]

Does anyone have any ideas as to where that 65.8GB of backups is residing, i've got 30 odd gigs on my MBP but i have everything backed up on externals.

I Want my 30GB back damn it!!

sudo tmutil disablelocal in Terminal will solve your problem. Basically TM now makes backups to your internal drive as well as your external one, for when you are away from your backup drive. Sadly these don't go away even if you are connected to your backup drive at all times. So far Apple have not given us any control over this feature, so if you don't want it there, the terminal command is the only option.

 

[mrapplegate]

Does anyone have any ideas as to where that 65.8GB of backups is residing, i've got 30 odd gigs on my MBP but i have everything backed up on externals.

I Want my 30GB back damn it!!

Backups are the local snapshots.
Disable with this terminal command
sudo tmutil disablelocal


local snapshots are stored in a private directory per volume. Each volume that is not excluded from time machine, there is a .MobileBackups directory at the root of the volume.

/Volumes/MobileBackups

 

[ivahardy]

Awesome thanks for the help guys. seems to of done the trick.

 

[Kanunu]

Imperfect Function

I think a part of the problem is that this function does a poor job identifying file types. I show 429GB of Other on my desktop which is not making these Time Machine snapshots. I also show my external drives (other than my Time Machine drive) as 100% Other even though they are nearly 100% movies. For a detailed look into your file sizes try DiskWave.app. It reads out in tree format then you can sort by size in each branch.