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Where is my disc space going? Only a restart brings it back.

E

eellerto

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 26, 2008
16
0
I lose about 1gb of disc space while I am online or doing whatever on my ibook g4 (leopard). I can't get it back until I restart my computer. I have a feeling that this is something to do with virtual memory, but am not sure. I use both Safari and Firefox (firefox seems to be a lot slower so I am trying safari). I have recently run Onyx and cleaned up everything, I think at least. Does anyone have any idea??


Thanks!
 
I could be wrong, but it might just be that all the files that Firefox and Safari download while you're online could be what's taking up your space. Of course, don't trust me, wait until a smarter person finds your question and answers it.
 
Just to offer my two cents: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1757
If you're running off the battery while you're surfing the internet this could definitely explain what's going on. Basically to make sure you don't have any data loss it'll begin to save that RAM data on the actual hard disk, like the hibernate feature on a Windows system.
 
italiano40 said:
do you have filevault on
system prefrence>security>File vault tab
Click to expand...

No. It isn't on.

I am running the disc inventory right now. As for the link pertaining to the RAM being saved to HD when on battery, it appears to be wrong, I tried to search for it when I was at the mac site, but could not find it. Do you happen to still have that link? THanks!
 
so, the disc inventory did not help, really. It doesn't seem to have a date attached to when the memory was used. I need to know what is using my memory with in the last hour or so, when I am using my laptop. For instance, I have been on my laptop for about 20 minutes and my memory has gone from 2.21gb to 2.04 just as I check this forum and my email. I haven't played a video, so it isn't the video card using it. It is just slowly depleting it. This is so weird. I also have my mac plugged in, so it isn't a battery issue. I wonder if I am going to have to reformat and start over again. I only started having this issue recently, but I can't put 2 and 2 together to figure out the cause. Any other ideas? Or better search terms that I could use to find an answer? My search terms don't seem to be very helpful.
 
Sun Baked said:
Probably VM manager and the swap file on the drive.
Click to expand...

I am not sure how to find vm manager. Also, what would I change? I have no idea what the swap file in the drive means. Sorry! Can you explain? Thanks!
 
the swap file is normal theres nothing wrong with it. every operating system wants at least the amount of RAM you have free as hard drive space for the swap drive. i suggest you start deleting unwanted stuff of moving large files such as movies to an external drive. OS X works best with around 10% free space.
 
Sun Baked said:
Probably VM manager and the swap file on the drive.
Click to expand...
This is your answer.

The way I've seen it work is my computer boots up with a single 2GB sleep image and a 64MB swap.

As time goes on if my computer needs it, which it only does if I am really doing a lot of stuff, it'll add a second 64. The next step it'll add a 128. Then a 256. Then a 512. Then a 1GB. I have 2GB of RAM in my computer now though so I rarely see it.

(If you do the math you notice that it is basically making its way up to the same amount of RAM you have. 64+64+128+256+512+1024=2048=2GB=Amount of RAM in my computer.)

Also, don't use Disk Inventory X. GrandPerspective is where it's at. Muuuuuch better. Less cluttered.

 
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