MBA, backups and SSD space

[devinh]

I am a bit of a novice when it comes to the Mac so I apologize upfront. I am trying to clean up a bit of space on a 13" MBA 256GB SSD (which will eventually be reset to default since my wife will take that one) as I have bought an 11" MBA 128GB SSD. I do use Time Machine for backups. I have about 95GB of available space on the 13" MBA so replicating it on the new 11" MBA won't work due to space.

My question is when I delete files and/or photos, the space available does not increase. Example: I will drag 100 photos from iPhoto to the trash, empty the iPhoto trash and the Mac trash. Am I missing something here? Does this have anything to do with "local backups"?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks, Devin

 

[johnhurley]

I am a bit of a novice when it comes to the Mac so I apologize upfront. I am trying to clean up a bit of space on a 13" MBA 256GB SSD (which will eventually be reset to default since my wife will take that one) as I have bought an 11" MBA 128GB SSD. I do use Time Machine for backups. I have about 95GB of available space on the 13" MBA so replicating it on the new 11" MBA won't work due to space.

My question is when I delete files and/or photos, the space available does not increase. Example: I will drag 100 photos from iPhoto to the trash, empty the iPhoto trash and the Mac trash. Am I missing something here? Does this have anything to do with "local backups"?

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks, Devin

This looks like it may help ... you can click on About this mac then change to the Storage tab ... here is more details and the fix.


local backup devours space

 

[devinh]

Thanks for the info. After reading that article, I am assuming Time Machine "local snapshots" are different than the "local backups" that Lion produces, yes? I only need Time Machine backups anyway, that's why I bought it.

So I could delete the local backups, perform a backup to Time Machine and restore the new 11" MBA from that last backup. Sound right?

Thanks, Devin

 

[johnhurley]

Thanks for the info. After reading that article, I am assuming Time Machine "local snapshots" are different than the "local backups" that Lion produces, yes? I only need Time Machine backups anyway, that's why I bought it.

So I could delete the local backups, perform a backup to Time Machine and restore the new 11" MBA from that last backup. Sound right?

Thanks, Devin

No I think those 2 local things are the same. Local backups are stored in the backup directory/folder until the external drive becomes available. Different names for the same things.

Yes on the second one but as the comment in that article says just run the command. Open up the terminal app and copy/paste that command into it ...

The article shows you graphically what is going on.

When you look at your system information how much of your space is taken up by the local backups?

 

[devinh]

I'm sorry, what I meant to say was disable the local backups in Lion with:

sudo tmutil disablelocal in the Terminal app under Applications>Utilities. I should have said Time Capsule backups as opposed to Time Machine. I have a Time Capsule which does "snapshots" so I really don't need the "local backups" of Lion. Does that make sense?

I did go to the Terminal app and entered the above command, it gave me a warning and asked for my password. It won't allow me to type my password. Frustrating! BTW, my backups under About My Mac>More Info>Storage is 39.79GB.

 

[johnhurley]

I did go to the Terminal app and entered the above command, it gave me a warning and asked for my password. It won't allow me to type my password. Frustrating!

You should see something like this:
......

Last login: Thu Oct 13 21:42:04 on console
Cincys-MacBook-Air:~ username$ sudo tmutil disablelocal
Password:

......

You type the password right next to the Password: prompt.

 

[devinh]

This is what I see:

Last login: Thu Oct 13 21:09:49 on ttys002
new-host-3:~ dkhyland$ sudo tmutil disablelocal

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:

But I cannot type anything next to the password prompt.

 

[johnhurley]

This is what I see:

Last login: Thu Oct 13 21:09:49 on ttys002
new-host-3:~ dkhyland$ sudo tmutil disablelocal

WARNING: Improper use of the sudo command could lead to data loss
or the deletion of important system files. Please double-check your
typing when using sudo. Type "man sudo" for more information.

To proceed, enter your password, or type Ctrl-C to abort.

Password:

But I cannot type anything next to the password prompt.

Hmmm ... no idea ... are you anywhere close to an apple store? Can you make a genius bar appt?

Another ( related ) alternate idea is to go there and buy the replacement machine and tell them you want help transferring the stuff over and bring along the old ( current ) machine.

 

[devinh]

Hmmm ... no idea ... are you anywhere close to an apple store? Can you make a genius bar appt?

Another ( related ) alternate idea is to go there and buy the replacement machine and tell them you want help transferring the stuff over and bring along the old ( current ) machine.

You're going to think I'm nuts but it worked. It probably worked in the background and I was expecting some instant result. I verified it under About My Mac and the More Info button. Thanks for the assistance. As I said, novice guy here.

Cheers.

 

[johnhurley]

You're going to think I'm nuts but it worked. It probably worked in the background and I was expecting some instant result. I verified it under About My Mac and the More Info button. Thanks for the assistance. As I said, novice guy here.

Cheers.

Sweet ... two things to think about.

1) you might want to get an external hard drive with a usb capabilities and get a fresh time machine backup on that prior to swapping units. It will go much faster backing up and recovering.

2) when you get the new machine do not start it up with your real account. Use some kind of temporary name etc and do all the updates first with that. Then you can later do the transfer and move the time machine backup into the new machine. You will end up with two accounts one from your old machine that has everything. Then eventually you can delete the temp account once you are convinced it is all legit.

 

[devinh]

Sweet ... two things to think about.

1) you might want to get an external hard drive with a usb capabilities and get a fresh time machine backup on that prior to swapping units. It will go much faster backing up and recovering.

2) when you get the new machine do not start it up with your real account. Use some kind of temporary name etc and do all the updates first with that. Then you can later do the transfer and move the time machine backup into the new machine. You will end up with two accounts one from your old machine that has everything. Then eventually you can delete the temp account once you are convinced it is all legit.

I have a Time Capsule, couldn't I do a final backup on that, too? I figured I would hardwire the new MBA to the Time Capsule and restore from that utilizing Migration Assistant. I'm all about a faster way though.

 

[disarticulate]

Wow!! Freed up 100GB

sudo tmutil disablelocal

This freed up 100GB from my MBA. I was transferring Apps/Files/Media from my old MBP to the MBA and after removing a lot of unwanted "bloated" stuff, I was still left with only 70GB Free. After disabling this and removing the backups it freed up 100GB. WooHoo! Now I have 170GB free.

----------

For those of you with 256GB, How much more would you have paid for 512GB?

I probably would have gone another $400 if I could have 512GB in this mini-monster.

I'm very happy with the performance. Just wish I could have either ordered more storage or put in my own storage.