programs say conflicting things about HD storage, which is right?

[garbonshio]

I Have a 13 inch Macbook Pro from early 2011.

when I run things like "disk usage" on "MacKeeper", It tells me i'm using only 68Gb of space on my hard drive.

According to "SystemInformation" i have somehow used 280 Gb. It tells me that I have 350 Gb used for backups. But i store all of my backups on a 500 Gb partition on a 2 Tb external hard drive through time machine.It says total disk usage is 280 Gb, and my max capacity is 320 Gb. How can i possibly have 350 Gb for backups?

According to "DiskInventory X" I have used 109 Gb.

Which is right? How can I know? Why is it even giving me conflicting numbers in the first place?

 

[throAU]

I Have a 13 inch Macbook Pro from early 2011.

when I run things like "disk usage" on "MacKeeper", It tells me i'm using only 68Gb of space on my hard drive.

According to "SystemInformation" i have somehow used 280 Gb. It tells me that I have 350 Gb used for backups. But i store all of my backups on a 500 Gb partition on a 2 Tb external hard drive through time machine.It says total disk usage is 280 Gb, and my max capacity is 320 Gb. How can i possibly have 350 Gb for backups?

According to "DiskInventory X" I have used 109 Gb.

Which is right? How can I know? Why is it even giving me conflicting numbers in the first place?

Lion onwards will use free hard drive space for local backups (and "versions") so you can restore deleted or modified files without needing your time machine disk.

IF you run low on disk space, it will start deleting those copies automatically - the space is just sitting there unused otherwise, so the OS makes use of it in case you need an older copy of a file.

To get the accurate figure on how much space you have "free" use get info on your disk.

The space "in use" for backups in system information should be considered "free" space as the OS will purge it if required. Although technically, the system information figure is correct, in terms of how many blocks are currently allocated on disk.

 

[garbonshio]

Thanks! Totally answered my question! I appreciate the help.