Where is all my disk space going???

[nspindel]

Had the same problem with that mysterious lump of "others" memory, I had like 40gigs of what-and-where-the-hell-is-this.

It turned out to be my iTouch 4 (30gig backup) and iPhone (10gig backup). I deleted them from my drives and BAM, my Air is 40gigs lighter

/library/Application Support/MobileSync/backups

Is there a way to configure the location where iTunes sends these backups? I have an iPhone and an iPad, and definitely would like to back them up, I just don't want the backups eating up all the space on the small SSD in my MBAir. I have a 1TB drive that's connected to the Air when it's on my desktop, I'd love the backups to go there. Possible to configure that?

 

[theSeb]

Had the same problem with that mysterious lump of "others" memory, I had like 40gigs of what-and-where-the-hell-is-this.

It turned out to be my iTouch 4 (30gig backup) and iPhone (10gig backup). I deleted them from my drives and BAM, my Air is 40gigs lighter

/library/Application Support/MobileSync/backups

Are you sure about the amount of space that you saw? My iPhone has about 7.4 GB of Audio, 2.1 GB of Video, 0.61 GB of photos and so forth. My backup is 687 mega bytes. That's because the backup does not store the actual videos, audio, books and so forth. It stores your data and links to what files you have so that they can be restored from the iTunes library, not from the back up file. My iPad has about 30 GB of stuff on it. The backup is 679 MB.

 

[theSeb]

Is there a way to configure the location where iTunes sends these backups? I have an iPhone and an iPad, and definitely would like to back them up, I just don't want the backups eating up all the space on the small SSD in my MBAir. I have a 1TB drive that's connected to the Air when it's on my desktop, I'd love the backups to go there. Possible to configure that?

1. The obvious answer is to configure your backup to the cloud. That will take a while though

2. You could also copy the folder "/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup" to your external drive. Then delete this folder on your computer. Then create a symbolic link to the folder on your external drive. Name the symbolic link "Backup" and create it in "/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/MobileSync"

If you didn't understand that, then I would suggest that you don't do it and I am not responsible if you break anything. You will also not be able to do a sync without the external drive connected.

 

[Queen6]

You assume the GUI is just a front end to existing commands and doesn't compile its own list internally. Unix has no command to makes the distinction between types of files. That's up to you to do by piping all the commands together.

For the vast majority of users a GUI front end is the better solution; it`s visual, far more intuitive, a dam sight simpler to understand, and after all isn't that what OS X is all about, of course we can always go back to the nice display`s with vacuum tubes green characters on the screen

 

[Villageguy86]

i don't understand why you guys haven't tried just using the finder.


open up your hard drive, and then goto view > enable list view.
then goto view > options > calculate all sizes
also check the "default to all" box thats under the calculate.

now wait (took me ~15 minutes to display all sizes the first time)

your finder now shows you how big everyone is, click through folders and find your issues.



ALSO running omni disk sweep or something of the like, will delete log files, which i am sure you can do on your own with a sudo.


someone else on this?

 

[Moll2969]

Had the same problem with that mysterious lump of "others" memory, I had like 40gigs of what-and-where-the-hell-is-this.

It turned out to be my iTouch 4 (30gig backup) and iPhone (10gig backup). I deleted them from my drives and BAM, my Air is 40gigs lighter

/library/Application Support/MobileSync/backups

How do you delete the back-ups from your drive?

 

[jterp7]

How do you delete the back-ups from your drive?

how much space should a fresh install of lion with the 128ssd 4gb air have left? of the 121 i know about 7 is for the sleep and pagefile

 

[convergent]

Have you turned time machine local backups off?

This is probably the problem. My drive lost about 40GB to this stuff. I read that Lion will use all but a small share of your drive for this stuff, but then release it if your drive starts to fill up. Me liking to see the empty space I have didn't like that plan so I disabled it.

 

[nspindel]

1. The obvious answer is to configure your backup to the cloud. That will take a while though

2. You could also copy the folder "/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/MobileSync/Backup" to your external drive. Then delete this folder on your computer. Then create a symbolic link to the folder on your external drive. Name the symbolic link "Backup" and create it in "/Users/<username>/Library/Application Support/MobileSync"

If you didn't understand that, then I would suggest that you don't do it and I am not responsible if you break anything. You will also not be able to do a sync without the external drive connected.

1) Nah, like I said there's a 1 TB Firewire 800 drive sitting right on my desk, I don't feel like paying for cloud storage.

2) Good idea, that may well work.

Thanks