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Maximise free space on MBPR

D

dabbler

macrumors member
Original poster
Oct 21, 2009
69
0
My 256gb macbook pro retina unit arrived today.

Out of the box after updates, it has 229.49gb free of 250.14.

Time to maximise free space!

1 - Delete recovery partition, this frees up another 650mb

Free space now 230gb

2 - Run xslimmer, saves another 439mb

Free space now 230.5gb

Every little helps, just thought other may want as maximum space as possible without removing any apps.
 
Neither of those are valuable space savers (barely over 1 out of 250GB saved), and both present various issues that may affect future usage of the machine. I highly recommend again either action overall, except in very specific situations for very specific usage. Xslimmer and apps like it have been known to cause problems with some applications, so should be used very carefully at best, while not having a Recovery Partition means you better have a flash drive or constant internet access in case the file system or OS becomes corrupted. In addition, you lose the ability to access certain features, like Find My Mac, when you remove the Recovery Partition.

jW
 
Yeah, those are pretty tiny savings. Better to turn off stuff like the deep sleep (its image takes up the size of your RAM), or delete iLife apps (and their related content) you're not going to use.
 
Yeah, you only freed up 1GB?!?!?

Not sure why you would remove the recovery partition, it only takes up 650mb and can come to good use at times. :eek:

You should have gotten 512Gb if you were that concerned about space!
 
Not concerned about space, but why not get the maximum you can?
 
While I agree that those methods don't free up a ton of space, it would be great to use this thread as a means to post methods that do make a huge difference. Like the deep sleep for example. My main understanding of this is that by turning it off once my battery gets to low the system will shut off causing me to lose unsaved work. Correct? This may be worth the risk to save 16gb of disk space seeing as how I never let my battery get this low.

Also what about turning off the local backups in time machine? I have done this on past macbooks and it frees very large amounts of disk space.
http://http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CFQQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fosxdaily.com%2F2011%2F09%2F28%2Fdisable-time-machine-local-backups-in-mac-os-x-lion%2F&ei=_SD2T7-kM4uO8wT87PnFBg&usg=AFQjCNHD4rU5iHZlcK8jBKIXpuxMQzdRiw

There is a great guide.
 
If he is like me the 512 gb option was just to expensive. I am holding out for OWC or someone else to release upgrades. Which I am sure will happen with time just like the MBA :)
 
Such utterly pointless methods. Removing one useful feature for 600mb jeez. You probably should have thought about saving for the 512 or just buying a USB3 drive.
 
Try stripping out unwanted language support with the free app Monolingual. It'll give you several gigs.
 
idonotliketostu said:
why not maximize space when you're about to reach 250?
right now it's kind of pointless...
Click to expand...

Because preparing for the future is never logical right?



For those bootcamp users, over at OCN, we've got quite a thorough guide for optimizing Win7 for an SSD install, goes over ways to save space and some performance optimization tips. Not everything would apply to a bootcamp install though. All credit goes to Sean!

http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/seans-windows-7-install-optimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds
 
01mggt said:
If he is like me the 512 gb option was just to expensive. I am holding out for OWC or someone else to release upgrades. Which I am sure will happen with time just like the MBA :)
Click to expand...

And be just as expensive like they were and are on the MBA. I guess you missed that part.
 
Either the OP is a troll, is ignorant of the importance of the recovery partition, or is a fool. You removed a vital tool for an insignificant saving of 650MB? What the hell?
 
Recovery partition played a huge roll for me...
I wouldnt delete it but since you already did, good luck when your mac gets in trouble.
 
yusukeaoki said:
Recovery partition played a huge roll for me...
I wouldnt delete it but since you already did, good luck when your mac gets in trouble.
Click to expand...

Internet Recovery is available in every Macbook after 2010 I believe (2010 featured Internet Recovery as a Firmware update IIRC).

That Recovery Partition would only help if you were stuck somewhere without internet and your computer randomly decided to crash. And that crash was not in any way related to the HD/SSD, since that would also contain the Recovery Partition.
 
daleski75 said:
I'd never delete the recovery partition just use cleanmymac to get rid of all the language files which are not needed and job done.
Click to expand...
I would not recommend CleanMyMac, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. While you may not have experienced problems yet, enough people have that it's wise to avoid it, especially since there are free alternatives that have better reputations, such as Onyx.

You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.

These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.

Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.


Freeing up space in Mac OS X
 
GGJstudios said:
I would not recommend CleanMyMac, based on the number of complaints that have been posted in this forum and elsewhere. As an example: CleanMyMac cleaned too much. While you may not have experienced problems yet, enough people have that it's wise to avoid it, especially since there are free alternatives that have better reputations, such as Onyx.

You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.

These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. In fact, deleting some caches can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.

Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.


Freeing up space in Mac OS X
Click to expand...

Never had any issues with cleanmymac and onyx should be installed as default on everyone's mac and I know that by default osx takes care of everything really well and the main reason for me using cleanmymac is for uninstalling old and unwanted apps and just getting rid of all traces of them.
 
daleski75 said:
the main reason for me using cleanmymac is for uninstalling old and unwanted apps and just getting rid of all traces of them.
Click to expand...
But it doesn't do that. In most cases, app removal software doesn't do a thorough job of finding and removing files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this and this. If you just want to delete the app, drag the .app file to the trash. No other software needed. If you want to completely remove all associated files/folders, no removal apps will do the job.

The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
 
GGJstudios said:
But it doesn't do that. In most cases, app removal software doesn't do a thorough job of finding and removing files/folders related to deleted apps. For more information, read this and this. If you just want to delete the app, drag the .app file to the trash. No other software needed. If you want to completely remove all associated files/folders, no removal apps will do the job.

The most effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
Click to expand...

I am fully aware of where to look for remnants of apps just cleanmymac makes it easier and if it picks up anything to delete which I know shouldn't be then I just make sure it's not ticked.

Had mac's for a good 10 years so and just a neat freak for making sure all remnants are gone (forced habit from windows)
 
Uzinusa said:
Try stripping out unwanted language support with the free app Monolingual. It'll give you several gigs.
Click to expand...

Thanks for that, just binned 3Gb of Chinese and Catalan and so on. Even us 768 giggers need to delete unnecessary junk!
 
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