System data goes up like 10 gb or more per month

[kofman13]

Mac Studio M1 Max, 512gb internal ssd. running Monterey 12.5
I am a music producer/audio engineer. All my samples/stems and things i export are on my external Samsung T7 ssd. the only things on my internal are apps, plugins, etc. I am not downloading anything on a daily basis. ive installed a few plugins in the last few months totaling maybe 2-3 gb total. I literally see my available internal space go down by a GB every few days while i'm not actually storing any new files.
A few months ago, System data was 80gb. now its 194gb. It just keeps going up. It's infuriating. What's causing this and how do i stop it or reclaim space other than reformatting and erasing my drive/reinstalling? I have 181gb space left on the drive so it's not the end of the world. but its worrying to see my available space keep going down on a daily basis. will it keep going down until i have no room left?

 

[Bigwaff]

APFS snapshots. What software do you use for backups? Is your external included in backups?

 

[kofman13]

APFS snapshots. What software do you use for backups? Is your external included in backups?

i backup my boot drive (309GB used, half of that is "system data") and my external (550gb used) about once every 6 weeks. I use SuperDuper! i back them up to other externals

 

[Bigwaff]

Take a look at the APFS snapshots on your system. Open Disk Utility, select a volume, and then menu View > Show APFS Snapshots. How many you gots? Instructions to manage snapshots.

View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on Mac, view a list of APFS snapshots, copy information about the snapshots, and delete them.

support.apple.com

 

[kofman13]

I have one snapshot from 2022 for some reason is still there, it wont let me delete it, the size is 50gb. when i press the minus button to delete it it says "resource is busy".

 

[Bigwaff]

Boot into Recovery and try to delete.

 

[kofman13]

i deleted it, and regained like 160gb, basically all that weird "OTHER" stuff in storage info is gone! thank you so much. i was trying to figure this out for months. everyone kept saying just deal with it thats how mac works, it delete its on its own. obviously not, some random 2022 snapshot shouldnt be there for so long.
anyway now its fixed!