What's Eating My HD?

[hansbraul]

I have a recent MacBook Pro running Mavericks 10.9.1 and can not figure out where my 750 GB of HD (flash drive, actually) have gone. I have run Disk Inventory X and can account for a total of about 200 GB, including applications and all my files. Yet when I run disk utilities it says I have used 594GB of 750GB. I don't have any problems yet but I just can't figure out where the 300 GB have gone. I'd really appreciate any help on this.

Thanks
Hans

 

[hansbraul]

Here's a screen shot of the Disk Inventory X screen:

And here's the Disk Utility:

Hope this helps

Hans

 

[maflynn]

You are only showing what's being consumed in the user folders. What about the root folder. If you're using Time Machine, then the local snapshots will be stored on the drive, along with the sleepimage file.

Personally, I much prefer using OmniDiskSweeper (its free) It will provide a sorted list of your files/folders and show you where all your space is going. It includes system and hidden folders

I found disk inventory x to have a very awkward UI (but that's just me)

 

[DeltaMac]

Your shot of DiskInventoryX show only the Users folder, and isn't showing anything for the rest of your hard drive (such as the /Library, and /System)

I also prefer to use OmniDiskSweeper.

 

[sjinsjca]

Have you backed up your drive via Time Machine recently?

If not, then Time Machine is running on your local disk, making versioned copies of stuff as time goes on. This will gradually consume space-- LOTS of space. It's a wonderful feature in that it lets you recover files you accidentally delete or screw up in some fashion, even if you're away from your main backup.

That space will be reclaimed when you back up properly to an external disk drive.

There are other possibilities, such as misbehaving software causing file-system issues. Running the verify-disk function in Disk Utility will tell you if you have lost or miscounted blocks. (Fixing this, should it occur, means booting into the recovery partition and re-running Disk Utility there and telling it to repair the drive.) But usually this sort of thing is just Time Machine watching your back.

Oh, and another thing: have you emptied your trash lately? Deleting files (sending them to the trash) doesn't actually free up the space they consume until you take the second step, which is to go to the Finder menu and tell it to empty the trash.

 

[hansbraul]

Mike,
Thanks for the quick reply. I did as you suggested, and here's the result. It also only accounts for just over 200 GB. Am I missing something?

 

[hansbraul]

Have you backed up your drive via Time Machine recently?

If not, then Time Machine is running on your local disk, making versioned copies of stuff as time goes on. This will gradually consume space-- LOTS of space. It's a wonderful feature in that it lets you recover files you accidentally delete or screw up in some fashion, even if you're away from your main backup.

That space will be reclaimed when you back up properly to an external disk drive.

There are other possibilities, such as misbehaving software causing file-system issues. Running the verify-disk function in Disk Utility will tell you if you have lost or miscounted blocks. (Fixing this, should it occur, means booting into the recovery partition and re-running Disk Utility there and telling it to repair the drive.) But usually this sort of thing is just Time Machine watching your back.

Oh, and another thing: have you emptied your trash lately? Deleting files (sending them to the trash) doesn't actually free up the space they consume until you take the second step, which is to go to the Finder menu and tell it to empty the trash.

I've emptied my trash and there don't seem be be any problems evident on verify disk. Where would I look to see what's being consumed by Time Machine?

 

[Peace]

Are you using Time Machine ? And is it stored on your internal HD ? If so my guess is that.

 

[thundersteele]

What does the "About this Mac" storage tab look like?

 

[hansbraul]

Are you using Time Machine ? And is it stored on your internal HD ? If so my guess is that.

Yes I'm using time machine with Time Capsule as my storage. I wouldn't think that would use any space on my HD would it?

 

[hansbraul]

What does the "About this Mac" storage tab look like?

Here it is:

 

[Peace]

Yes I'm using time machine with Time Capsule as my storage. I wouldn't think that would use any space on my HD would it?

No it wouldn't.

Are you running any virtual machines ?

Try clearing out all your caches and temporary files. Also look at the languages installed. Especially with the MS Office stuff.

After doing that reboot and see what it says.

 

[hansbraul]

Oooops - I just ran verify and heres what it came up with. I'll repair disk and report the results.

 

[sjinsjca]

Oooops - I just ran verify and heres what it came up with. I'll repair disk and report the results.
View attachment 453923

Whoa. Well, that'll free some space up. Not much, from what's shown in the screen-snap, but some.

I've had orphaned blocks on my rMBP with an SSD too. So far Apple blames some third-party software (and they may be right... there's one utility I use which I've currently disabled, with so far no further orphaned blocks... meanwhile the manufacturer of said utility says there's no way it could be their stuff... so I'm testing...)

So tell me more about your system. You said SSD; is this an aftermarket SSD or is it a factory-installed unit? Are you using FileVault?

----------

Here it is:
View attachment 453922

Could you paste that again with your main hard disk selected?

 

[hansbraul]

Sorry - here's the screen shot of the details on my SSD

 

[hansbraul]

Whoa. Well, that'll free some space up. Not much, from what's shown in the screen-snap, but some.

I've had orphaned blocks on my rMBP with an SSD too. So far Apple blames some third-party software (and they may be right... there's one utility I use which I've currently disabled, with so far no further orphaned blocks... meanwhile the manufacturer of said utility says there's no way it could be their stuff... so I'm testing...)

So tell me more about your system. You said SSD; is this an aftermarket SSD or is it a factory-installed unit? Are you using FileVault?

----------



Could you paste that again with your main hard disk selected?

My SSD is factory installed.

----------

Whoa. Well, that'll free some space up. Not much, from what's shown in the screen-snap, but some.

...

Are you using FileVault?

Sorry for the incomplete previous replies. I am not using FileVault (what is that?). It turns out the repair didn't save me any significant amount of space.

This is really worrisome and I really appreciate any help you can offer.

Thanks
Hans

 

[Weaselboy]

This is really worrisome and I really appreciate any help you can offer.

Let's back up and try a couple things.

Do a command-r boot to recovery and do another repair disk in Disk Util to make sure that remains fixed. Let us know if you see errors again.

Then reboot and enter the command below in Terminal to reindex Spotlight. These folder sizes come from the Spotlight index and it can get corrupted.

sudo mdutil -E /

After the Spotlight index is updated (it can take a half hour or more). Run the command below in Terminal. It will ask for your password.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

Give it a few minutes to complete and post the output up here. It will look something like this. Those numbers to the left are size in GB in each folder.

1	/.DocumentRevisions-V100
1	/.fseventsd
2	/.MobileBackups
0	/.PKInstallSandboxManager
1	/.Spotlight-V100
0	/.Trashes
0	/.vol
8	/Applications
1	/bin
0	/cores
1	/dev
1	/home
8	/Library
1	/net
0	/Network
5	/private
1	/sbin
5	/System
32	/Users
1	/usr
1	/Volumes
58	/
58	total

What is the utility you mentioned that you think may have contributed to this?

 

[AirThis]

You can also paste this in terminal to get a list of all files which are greater than 100MB:

sudo find / * -size +100M -exec ls -lht {} \; > ~/mybigfiles.txt

Once it has run, you will find a file called mybigfiles.txt in your home folder. The file sizes will be in human readable format. You can of course adjust the size if you want.

It doesn't mean that you can erase all those files (beware some will be apps or necessary for OSX), but it will at least give you the tools to investigate.

 

[sjinsjca]

What is the utility you mentioned that you think may have contributed to this?

I suspect that question might have been directed at me, as I noted my suspicion regarding one third-party product that may be involved.

I'm purposely holding off mentioning the utility until I'm more certain it's at fault. I'll say this much: it's a backup utility that I use in addition to Time Machine.

Hansbraul, are you using any such utility or service?

 

[hansbraul]

Hansbraul, are you using any such utility or service?

I'm not using any such utility or service. I just use Time Machine which backs up to my 2TB Time Capsule.

To Weaselboy and Airthis, I hope you will forgive this newbie, but when I went into terminal to make the suggested changes, it warned me that this might cause corruption of files or loss of data. I stopped, because to be honest, I don't have any idea whether I should be worried or not. Are these sodu commands completely safe? I just don't want the medicine to be more painful than the disease.

Hans

 

[AirThis]

I'm not using any such utility or service. I just use Time Machine which backs up to my 2TB Time Capsule.

To Weaselboy and Airthis, I hope you will forgive this newbie, but when I went into terminal to make the suggested changes, it warned me that this might cause corruption of files or loss of data. I stopped, because to be honest, I don't have any idea whether I should be worried or not. Are these sodu commands completely safe? I just don't want the medicine to be more painful than the disease.

Hans

The find command I gave you is a simple search of the hard disk for files bigger than 100MB. The results are stored in a text file in your home directory. The sudo command is an elevation of privileges so that you can search the entire hard disk. You should not see any messages stating that you can lose files.

The dangerous thing to do would be to delete files, and we're not doing that. We're just searching for big files. Nothing else.

 

[hansbraul]

The find command I gave you is a simple search of the hard disk for files bigger than 100MB. The results are stored in a text file in your home directory. The sudo command is an elevation of privileges so that you can search the entire hard disk. You should not see any messages stating that you can lose files.

The dangerous thing to do would be to delete files, and we're not doing that. We're just searching for big files. Nothing else.

Here's what I got when I did the command. No idea what to do with this info...

 

[AirThis]

Here's what I got when I did the command. No idea what to do with this info...
View attachment 454263

Open mybigfiles.txt in your home directory and browse it. You will see that there is a column with the file sizes. This should show if there are any extraordinarily big files. Don't erase anything, just look.

 

[thundersteele]

Go to your home directory. There should be a file called mybigfiles.txt. Open it and see if there is anything interesting in there.

 

[Merode]

I guess it's Time Machine backups. I use it always with external hard drive but it still stores recently deleted files on local HD as backup. I've asked question about this on the OS X forum and somebody told me that it frees space up only if there's less than 20% free space on hard drive.

It doesn't matter if you later back up to external HD - it just stays there just in case. I guess Apple thinks that space should be utilized and the same goes for RAM with OS X 10.9.1. It's not bad actually.

Unless I've been misled.

The screenshot from "*Apple* -> About this mac -> more information -> mass storage" (I hope it is called that way in english ver. of OS X) might confirm it, if there will be loooots of purple.