Where Has All My Storage Gone...

[Gizmo22]

15" rMBP, 256GB SSD

Not the heaviest usage - intended to load Starcraft II or Diablo 3 on the system before seeing how I have "misplaced" 200GB of storage space.

Free space is shown in the grey on the bottom of the Disk Inventory bit of software.

Installed software - Office 2011, Steam (no games), iLife, Dropbox (6GB or so), and Evernote

Any ideas where everything has gone?

 

[omgitscro]

The disk inventory software is only seeing 59.1GB of used-up data, which is correct given the folder-by-folder breakdown on the left.

Try restarting the machine. Maybe a big memory leak caused the system to create a 150GB pagefile (unlikely), but more probable is that there was a bug in the indexing of your filesystem.

 

[Gizmo22]

The disk inventory software is only seeing 59.1GB of used-up data, which is correct given the folder-by-folder breakdown on the left.

Try restarting the machine. Maybe a big memory leak caused the system to create a 150GB pagefile (unlikely), but more probable is that there was a bug in the indexing of your filesystem.

Noted, and tried several times before and after you recommended it. No luck.

 

[thundersteele]

First I would back up important data. Then I would try to reset the SMC and PRAM. Continue with running some disc check, then check & repair disc permissions. Finally reinstall the OS (from scratch, not from backup).

Stop at any of the steps if the problem goes away, obviously

 

[Gizmo22]

Ran through a variety of Verify and Repair options. Reset NVRAM several times throughout day to no avail. Booted repair partition, then repaired disk from within partition menu. At that point it freed up another 40GB saying an old Blu Ray iso had some incorrect block limits set.

Still looking at 90GB of free space compared to the ~200 or so I would expect.

 

[devilcm3]

download cleanmymac trial, and try scan for those files that bogged down your machine.

 

[Yahooligan]

Open Terminal and see what this says...

sudo du -hs /.MobileBackups /.Spotlight-V100

If one or both of those adds up to about how much space you've "lost" then you'll know where it went. They show as empty in your screenshots because the app/your user doesn't have permission to view inside them (Notice the red mark on the folder icons).

I'd avoid any sort of Mac "cleaning" app and would check if the Disk Inventory app you have has a "Scan as Administrator" option. If not, I've had good luck with DaisyDisk (There's a demo version) and right-clicking on a drive provides a "Scan as Administrator" option which will help you find "hidden" files and data.

 

[Michaelgtrusa]

This is a old app.

 

[G-Mo]

Do you use Time Machine? What OS? When was the last time you plugged your Time Machine drive in?

 

[Gizmo22]

Open Terminal and see what this says...

sudo du -hs /.MobileBackups /.Spotlight-V100

If one or both of those adds up to about how much space you've "lost" then you'll know where it went. They show as empty in your screenshots because the app/your user doesn't have permission to view inside them (Notice the red mark on the folder icons).

I'd avoid any sort of Mac "cleaning" app and would check if the Disk Inventory app you have has a "Scan as Administrator" option. If not, I've had good luck with DaisyDisk (There's a demo version) and right-clicking on a drive provides a "Scan as Administrator" option which will help you find "hidden" files and data.

I'm seeing 90G for Mobile Backups.

This is a old app.

This is helpful

Do you use Time Machine? What OS? When was the last time you plugged your Time Machine drive in?

10.8.4 Time Machine functions through a hard drive attached to an AEBS.

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Disabled local backups of Time Machine and all seems on the up and up. Didn't realize my networked solution had not been connecting.