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Used disk space mismatch with actual data

N

naserke

macrumors newbie
Original poster
May 15, 2010
18
0
I have Macbook with Mac OS X 10.6.4. I have 500 gb internal hard drive. I only have 297 gb data in my documents but finder shows that my harddive has 472gb of data and only 28 gb left.
I don't understand this mismatch and I am running out of disk space.

Need help on what all extra disk space is being used for and how to fix it.
 
naserke said:
I have Macbook with Mac OS X 10.6.4. I have 500 gb internal hard drive. I only have 297 gb data in my documents but finder shows that my harddive has 472gb of data and only 28 gb left.
I don't understand this mismatch and I am running out of disk space.

Need help on what all extra disk space is being used for and how to fix it.
Click to expand...
Some frequently recommended GUI utilities:

But using Terminal is usually better (IMO), both in terms of accuracy... and in terms of communicating results in a forum:
  1. Unmount and disconnect all external drives (Flash/USB, FireWire, etc).

  2. Unmount all networked shares, and unplug Ethernet (and/or turn off AirPort).

  3. Now... copy/paste this into Terminal:

    sudo du -hd1 /

    and hit return. Supply an admin password (which will not echo to screen).
    Let the command run to completion (might take around 5 minutes).

  4. Copy/paste the results here.

  5. Also run this command and post results:

    df -h
 
You checked only your Documents folder? or did you check any other folders as well?

Like Downloads, Movies, Music, Library etc..

Try checking your entire Home folder or go into root and check Applications,Library,System,Users (highlight and press Command+Option+i)

Also try repairing disk and erasing free space

And do what the above reply said as well, just in case.
 
I will try these commands and get back to you.

@ Saturdays.. I looked at home folder which includes all movies, photos, downloads etc.
 
Here is the output from 2 commands.. thanks

sudo du -hd1 /

228K /.fseventsd
102M /.Spotlight-V100
0B /.Trashes
6.0G /Applications
3.9M /bin
0B /cores
du: Can't follow symlink cycle from /dev/fd/3 to /dev/fd/3


df -h

Filesystem Size Used Avail Capacity Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2 465Gi 436Gi 29Gi 94% /
devfs 108Ki 108Ki 0Bi 100% /dev
map -hosts 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% /net
map auto_home 0Bi 0Bi 0Bi 100% /home
 
I downloaded 3 utilities you mentioned and ran each one.

Grand Perspective
Volume size 465GB
Scanned files 296 GB
Miscellaneous used space 140 GB
Initial free space 28.6 GB


Omnidisksweeper
HD 294.9 GB
User 274.5 GB
Library 6.5 GB
Application 6.0GB
Private 5 GB
System 2.3 GB
usr 479 MB
Spotlight 103 MB

JDiskReport
Total 292.3 GB
Users 274.1 GB

GrandPerspective results says that "Miscellaneous used space 140 GB".

What is Miscellaneous Used space????
 
naserke said:
Code: 
df -h

Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/disk0s2   465Gi  436Gi   [COLOR="Magenta"]29[/COLOR]Gi    94%    /
Click to expand...
Yep, there's your (less than) 30 gigs of free space.



naserke said:
Code: 
sudo du -hd1 /

228K    /.fseventsd
102M    /.Spotlight-V100
  0B    /.Trashes
6.0G    /Applications
3.9M    /bin
  0B    /cores
[COLOR="Magenta"]du: Can't follow symlink cycle from /dev/fd/3 to /dev/fd/3[/COLOR]
Click to expand...
Hmm, strange... du used to behave better than that (but i'm seeing the same deal here on 10.6 now).

Okay, then run this one instead:

sudo du -hxd1 /

Unfortunately, that'll also skip over the /Volumes folder... which is often a place where disk space gets eaten by improperly dismounted volumes. So we (might) need to check that separately.

This is one way to quickly test that from Terminal:

ls -lkia /Volumes

[nevermind the previous edit]
 
Last edited:
sudo du -hxd1 /

236K /.fseventsd
104M /.Spotlight-V100
0B /.Trashes
6.0G /Applications
3.9M /bin
0B /cores
4.5K /dev
1.0K /home
6.5G /Library
1.0K /net
0B /Network
5.1G /private
2.6M /sbin
2.3G /System
268G /Users
473M /usr
141G /Volumes
429G /


ls -lkia /Volumes

total 12
830477 drwxrwxrwt@ 5 root admin 170 Dec 24 00:08 .
2 drwxrwxr-t 30 root admin 1088 Jul 15 03:19 ..
2310957 -rw-r--r--@ 1 _spotlight admin 6148 Nov 29 22:41 .DS_Store
2355588 lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Dec 12 15:33 Macintosh HD -> /
1041154 d--x--x--x+ 16 root admin 544 Sep 5 00:55 System Backup

Thanks...
 
naserke said:
Code: 
sudo du -hxd1 /

236K	/.fseventsd
104M	/.Spotlight-V100
  0B	/.Trashes
6.0G	/Applications
3.9M	/bin
  0B	/cores
4.5K	/dev
1.0K	/home
6.5G	/Library
1.0K	/net
  0B	/Network
5.1G	/private
2.6M	/sbin
2.3G	/System
268G	/Users
473M	/usr
[COLOR="Magenta"]141G[/COLOR]	/Volumes
429G	/


ls -lkia /Volumes

total 12
 830477 drwxrwxrwt@  5 root        admin   170 Dec 24 00:08 .
      2 drwxrwxr-t  30 root        admin  1088 Jul 15 03:19 ..
2310957 -rw-r--r--@  1 _spotlight  admin  6148 Nov 29 22:41 .DS_Store
2355588 lrwxr-xr-x   1 root        admin     1 Dec 12 15:33 Macintosh HD -> /
[COLOR="Magenta"]1041154[/COLOR] d--x--x--x+ 16 root        admin   544 Sep  5 00:55 [COLOR="Magenta"]System Backup[/COLOR]
Thanks...
Click to expand...
Looks to me like there's a bungled backup in /Volumes
[as seen from Terminal, any "directory" inside /Volumes should have an inode number = 2 (generally speaking, though there are exceptions).]

That "System Backup" item has to go.

You can open the /Volumes folder in Finder via the Go menu --> Go to Folder...
and type /Volumes in the text field.

Else, run this in Terminal:

open /Volumes
 
Last edited:
Thanks...

How do I delete this System backup Volume... Its not visible in Finder.
 
naserke said:
Thanks...

How do I delete this System backup Volume... Its not visible in Finder.
Click to expand...
I did edit my previous post with some additional (albeit minimal) info. I thought i'd just let you decide if you wanted to look inside it for stuff to save maybe. But i see it has some fairly restrictive permissions.

If it proves to be too difficult to delete in the GUI... and
if you're sure there's nothing inside you need to save... then,
this series of commands should loosen up any blockages nicely:

sudo chflags -R nouchg /Volumes/System?Backup
sudo chmod -R -N /Volumes/System?Backup
sudo chmod 777 /Volumes/System?Backup

After which this should erase the bugger:

sudo rm -Rf /Volumes/System?Backup

note:
  • the ? there is intentional (not a typo).
  • the less output on screen the better. (Unix commands of that nature succeed silently).

--

I'm not there so i can't see what's happening. There's a slight chance that —if you were to try "moving" that System Backup folder to the trash. then —it might actually make a copy instead. So perhaps my Terminal commands are the right way to go from the beginning.

[those commands are directed at that problem folder in its current location "/Volumes/System Backup" ... so if it does go into the trash (i.e., via a successful move), then those commands won't do anything .]
 
Thanks for your help and quick responses.
I would like to look into System backup volume before I delete, but could not find it in Finder window.

Is there a way that I can look at its content through GUI before I use commands to delete it? I did not create this volume, so I don't what's inside.

Thanks again..
 
oh sorry.. you have given instructions on how to open it in finder.

Sorry.. I missed that in hurry..

thanks
 
I dragged the folder to trash and it worked. I cleaned the trash and now I have 188 GB of free space.

I really appreciate your help. Thanks.
 
I have similar problem

Hi Hal Itosis,

Thanks for solving naserke's problem.

I have similar problem with my macbook pro. It had 320 Gig hdd.

When I tried GrandPerspective, it showed the following details

Volume Size: 297 GB
Size of Scanned File: 169 GB
Miscellaneous Used Space: 97.1 GB
Initial Free Space 30,4 GB

When I do GetInfo on my HDD from Finder I get a free space of 30,4GB

I tried your approach and saw 'MobileBackups' under /Volume folder

When I moved it to Trash, it went in, but I dont see anything there and there is no option to Empty Trash :-(

Did i screwed it up???? Am so worried now... Any help suggestions from you will be highly appreciated.

Thank you,
Romie
 
romiebleed said:
I tried your approach and saw 'MobileBackups' under /Volume folder

When I moved it to Trash, it went in, but I dont see anything there and there is no option to Empty Trash :-(

Did i screwed it up???? Am so worried now... Any help suggestions from you will be highly appreciated.

Thank you,
Romie
Click to expand...
You are using Mac OS Lion on a mobile Mac, aren't you? If so, you should have a look at this thread here and disable the local time machine backups - which you deleted manually, as it seems. But that shouldn't cause any problems, so no worries.
 
Thanks matwe

I tried the backup disabling command and got the following output... Is that correct?

Leahs-Mac:~ kamalrajdhanapal$ sudo tmutil disablelocal
sudo: tmutil: command not found
Leahs-Mac:~ kamalrajdhanapal$


Thanks for your assistance...

Thanks,
Romie
 
No, this means it didn't work. Which version of OS X are you using? It only works on mobile Macs with OS X Lion, not on Tiger or Snow Leopard.
 
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