Regained space on SSD

[anzio]

Hi all,

It appears as though I have gained about 30-40+GB of space over the course of a couple of hours. I actually downloaded a 14GB video game, and gained the space when that download happened. This calculation is coming from Finder. Although the extra space is a welcome sight, I fear it may indicate a problem with my SSD.

Is this just an error in Finders calculation, or could my SSD be going? It's a rMBP 15" 2012 model. I did repair the disk in Disk Utility, and everything was okay. It seems like About This Mac and Disk Utility provides a different amount of free space.

Cheers!

Update: After the last bootup, I lost almost 10GB.

 

[LoMonkey]

If you gained free space, it could be either a miscalculation in Finder, or something to do with temporary files being deleted as you downloaded the 14GB game (especially if you torrented the game).

If you gained total SSD space (used+free), then something may be wrong with your drive.

If it was just the free space, I wouldn't worry too much, as long as your data is all still there. I'm pretty sure Finder uses quick estimates. Get a better stat tool, possibly iStat Menus

 

[anzio]

If you gained free space, it could be either a miscalculation in Finder, or something to do with temporary files being deleted as you downloaded the 14GB game (especially if you torrented the game).

If you gained total SSD space (used+free), then something may be wrong with your drive.

If it was just the free space, I wouldn't worry too much, as long as your data is all still there. I'm pretty sure Finder uses quick estimates. Get a better stat tool, possibly iStat Menus

Thanks for the response. I can't see any evidence of data loss, so it looks like everything is okay on that front.

Puts my mind at ease knowing that it's probably just a miscalculation with Finder, or even temporary files being cleaned up (Steam does have awkward downloading mechanics).

 

[KevinC867]

I was scratching my head when I found a big difference (about 30GB) between what Get Info reported as the Used space on my SSD and the total size of the folders on Macintosh HD reported by the Finder.

Using Terminal, I found a large hidden folder: /.MobileBackups. Some research revealed that Time Machine will continue to make backups into this folder on your hard drive when your Time Machine drive is not connected.

Eventually, Time Machine will delete the local backup. Perhaps that's how you got that disk space back.

Right now, I'm once again searching for 24 GB of "lost" disk space. Again, that's the difference between the total size of my folders on Macintosh HD and the Used space reported by Get Info. This time I'm not finding any huge hidden directories, so I'm really scratching my head now...