External Disk Space

So I just got an external disk for storing imovie projects. However, when I am actually using the file in iMovie, are the cache files being kept on the OSX startup disk or the external Drive? I ask to know whether I should reserve a certain percentage of the external disk to maximize performance as required by the startup disk under OSX.

Thanks Karl, but I was referring to the OSX Virtual Memory management. Most non-destructive functions are written to the disk as memory when real RAM is not avilable and Apple recommends at least 1GB free, with most practical applications being at least 5 and the more the merrier. I've heard as much as 10% of the disk should be kept free at all times to speed operations. My question is whether iMovie stores its temporary RAM files on the external disk on which the project resides or on the startup disk. If the external, then I have to reserve at least 5GB.

Similar Messages

How much external disk space is needed for editing HD video?

If I'm using FCE:
1) How much external disk space is needed for editing HD video:
if I downloaded 150mins of HD video? and
do editing with it which will have an output of 120mins.
Now PC, going to a MAC user soon Windows XP

Hi(bonjour)!
As a rule of thumb for HDV editing, use those numbers:
12 to 15 meg/second for capturing ( your project is 150 minutes long, so 780 meg/minute, or 117 to 125 Gig).
If you do any editing, add transition, video effect, add 12 to 15 meg /second to the total.
As your project will have to be rendered for the print to tape operation, calculate 12 to 15 meg/second for all the length of your final movie. Add this amount to the total. (example: a 60 minutes movie : 49 Gig).
If you want to burn a DVD on your Mac, calculate 3 to 4 meg/second for downconversion to DV material if you check "self-contained" in quicktime export dialog. (example: your finished project is 60 minutes long : 10.8 Gig)
iDVD itself needs 3 to 4 times this amount if you want flawless operation.
Finally, if you use your internal hard disk for all this storage (it's not a good idea to capture on the same drive where Mac OS X belongs), your Mac OS needs some spare room to breath (doing caching, etc), and your hard drive must have a least 25% of free space to avoid file's fragmentation.
As hard drive's price drop, get the maximum size you can afford. 250 Gig is a good choice if you want to do just one project of 90 to 150 minutes at the time.
Michel Boissonneault

External disk space gone crazy after upgrade to SL

Hi,
I have just upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard, and am now running 10.6.3. I have an iomega 320GB external USB hard disk which I use to back up via Time Machine, and also to periodically back up a virtual machine which is not backed up by Time Machine. Prior to upgrading, there was about 3GB of space on the iomega drive, the TM backups were taking about 251GB and my virtual machine backup was taking the remaining 66GB.
The first time I connected the iomega drive after upgrading to SL, I wanted to deleted the backup copy of the virtual machine (66GB), so I navigated to it in the Finder, right-clicked on the folder and selected "Move to trash", whereupon it duly disappeared. (I thought it slightly odd that I didn't hear the drive making any sound – I thought I should be able to hear it pysically deleting the file.) I then tried to copy a new virtual machine file of smaller size onto the iomega drive, and got an error message that there was not enough disk space. I selected the drive in the L/H pane of the Finder window and hit Cmd-I to get info: this told me the following:
Capacity 319.73GB
Available 1.89GB
Used 317.84GB
I know that the files I just deleted from the iomega were around 66GB, so why isn't there at least 66GB of free space? I have not run Time Machine since upgrading, so there is no way the TM backup set can have somehow expanded to fill up the additional space. I have run Disk Utility and tried repairing the drive, but this has made no difference. I then selected the Time Machine backup set on the iomega drive, which is a folder named "Backups.backupdb", and hit Cmd-I to get info. The get info window popped up and said it was calculating the size of the item. Some six-and-a-half hours later, it finally concluded its calculations and told me that the backup set is... wait for it... 4.54TB! (4,458,364,261,372B to be precise...)
What is going on? I'm aware that SL uses a different basis to measure disk space, but this does not explain where 66GB of freed up space has suddenly "disappeared" to, or why this backup set appears to be 14 times the physical size of the disk it's on!
Am I going to have to erase the drive and lose all my previous TM backups, or is there some other way around this?
Thanks in advance,
Rob

After you selected move to Trash, did you remember to then empty the Trash? When you move something to the Trash the Finder puts it in the invisible Trash folder of the drive in question, and there it stays until the Trash is emptied with the drive mounted.
I have many crackpop theories about things, and one of them is that Apple has somehow messed up the Finder's ability to calculate sizes in the newly rewritten Snow Leopard Finder. Mind you, Finder has not been very good at doing this for a very long time anyway, but it seems to me it has gotten even worse. Nonetheless it should be able to get an answer that makes sense using the GetInfo function for a drive, although it will take longer than it seems to me it ought to do (but in the range of minutes rather than hours). Thus GetInfo on my Time drive shows
Capacity 249.93GB
Available 140.95GB
Used 108.97GB
A result returned remarkably quickly (for a change). Using the disk usuage command in Terminal, where the results returned are shown in the "old" size format rather than the new PR influenced format, shows this:
NoobiX:~ francine$ sudo du -cxhd 1 /Volumes/Time
Password:
1.4M /Volumes/Time/.fseventsd
1.5G /Volumes/Time/.Spotlight-V100
0B /Volumes/Time/.TemporaryItems
0B /Volumes/Time/.Trashes
0B /Volumes/Time/.vol
5.4G /Volumes/Time/Applications
77G /Volumes/Time/Backups.backupdb
7.6M /Volumes/Time/bin
0B /Volumes/Time/cores
0B /Volumes/Time/dev
0B /Volumes/Time/home
7.0G /Volumes/Time/Library
0B /Volumes/Time/net
0B /Volumes/Time/Network
510M /Volumes/Time/private
5.2M /Volumes/Time/sbin
3.8G /Volumes/Time/System
3.8G /Volumes/Time/Users
1.0G /Volumes/Time/usr
4.0K /Volumes/Time/Volumes
100G /Volumes/Time
100G total
Terminal takes a bit of time to return the above results, but again it is in the range of some minutes, not hours. If you DID remember to empty the Trash after moving the files to it, you might try running the du command in Terminal to see where the stuff is.
Copy and paste this into Terminal
sudo du -cxhd 1
press the spacebar, then drag and drop the mounted volume into the Terminal from the Desktop. Press return, enter your admin password (which is not echoed to the screen in any way whatsoever), press return again, and go have a cup of coffee while the sizes are calculated.
Finally, the repair disk function in Disk Utility is not particularly robust. To truly repair a disk with siginificant problems you need something like Disk Warrior.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

How does time machine use the external disk space??

does time machine back up only the changed or new stuff or does it back up everything? does this mean that if on "day one" it backed up 600 gb worth of data, the next back up on "day 2" would be 600gb+a few more things, or would it be 600gb+600gb+the few more things? Does it back up "day one" in a whole package and "day two" in another package, or does it back up "day one", plus only the different things made from "day one" to "day two""?
similarly, does it keep stuff from the first back up ever, plus anything new or modified in the following back ups, then when it is full, does it let just the oldest files drop off? or does it drop off everything from the initial backup? that is, if I had 20mb of changes would it erase only 20mb of data to make the new data fit, or would it erase all 600gb from say "day one"?
thanks for the answer!
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
<Email Edited by Host>

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters.

How to migrate from my old MacBook Pro to a new one with less disk space and an external hard drive?

I have just bought a new MacBook Pro and an external hard drive.
Yet I have problems migrating data from my old MacBook Pro (more internal disk space with around 500 GB data) to my new one (internal disk space less than 500 GB).
I have connected all 3 devices but it seems the Migration Assistant does not have an option for us to select to migrate to an external hard drive.
Any other way to do it?
Kindly help me. Thanks.

For your situation, Target disk mode may be the most efficient method:
http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1661
Ciao.

My mac is runnug out of disk space. Do /i need to by external drives? how much memory should i get

My imac is running out of disk space. I download a lot of media from itunes. The HD movies and TV shows use so much space. Should I switch to the cloud, clean up my memory or buy an external memory drive? If i get an external drive how much memory is suggesyed? 1TB, 2TB or more?

Buy an external hard drive on which to save your media. The drive should be large enough to handle your entire iTunes Library plus how much you would anticipate adding to the library over the next few years. Then backup your existing library to the external drive: iTunes- Back up your iTunes library by copying to an external hard drive.
After you have backed up the library to the external drive you can configure iTunes to use the library on the external drive in iTunes > Preferences > Advanced. Change the path to the external drive. Once you do that quit and relaunch iTunes. It should now be using the library on the external drive. Now you can delete the library on the internal hard drive to free up the space.

Time machine not backing up, no error message,plenty space in external disk

Hello,
Every time the Time Machine starts a back up, it stops 2 seconds later, it records that the back up has been made, but no file gets updated. It gives no error messages. For it, the back up has been made, when in reality it has not. There is plenty of space in the external disk (twice as much as the space used in the Mac HD). Do you know what may be going on?
Thanks
Message was edited by: F A

See #D5 in [Time Machine - Troubleshooting|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Troubleshooting.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

Music is on an external hard drive how to transfer to iPod without using disk space on MacBook

Hi
I just brought a new iPod as my last one broke and I was wondering if there was a way to transfer my music currently stored on an external hard drive on to the iPod without having to have it using up disk space on my MacBook.
I was told in the Apple store by a sale guy that you can do this by creating a playlist in iTunes and dragging the music files in from the hard drive. He said it wouldn't be stored on the MacBook and the playlist could only be accessed (or music played on the macbook) when the hard drive was connected. But when we tried this it started transferring ALL of the music from the hard drive onto the main iTunes library and subsequently onto the disk space on the MacBook.
Can someone help me :-)

The sales guy does not know what he's talking about...
Open iTunes preferences Advanced tab. Uncheck the box for Copy files to iTunes Media folder when adding to library. Click OK.
Now, when you add those songs to your iTunes library, iTunes will access the song files from the external drive, where they are currently located. And you can sync them to your iPod.

HT1923 hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can i remove iTunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space and then just run it from the hard drive. instead of taking space on the mac? even if the mac no longer has enough to accommo

Hi, my mac air is really low on disk space, can I remove itunes (which is huge) to an external hard drive to free up space?...and then run it from the hard drive instead of the mac,even if the mac no longer has space to accomodate the size of the library?

Yes.
Copy your music iTunes Library folder to the external drive and change the Advanced settings in iTunes to point to this new location.
Once you're happy with these changes you can delete the same Library from your User account to free up space on the internal drive.

I transfered all my photos to an external hard drive, but I still get the low disk space message when I try to upload more photos. Help please!

I moved all my photos from iphoto to an external hard drive, but I am still getting the "low space message" when I try to upload more photos to iphoto.
How do I free up the disk space in iphoto?
I currently have 642.1 MB of free space, but I thought that once I moved all my photos out of iphoto, that it would free up a bunch of space.
Help please!

Have you told iPhoto about the new location? If you haven't then iPhoto is ignoring it and continuing to use the original one. If you have completely transferred the library to the external hdd then you can delete the one on your internal one, but make sure that the one on your external drive is complete and has the iPhoto library icon on it. Whatever you do, don't lose your photos!

G'day. I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space. How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

G'day. I am using iMovie 11 and need to clear disk space. How can I do that using an external drive, leaving me the option to go back and make changes or access old events or projects from that external drive?

The slightly bigger question is whether you want to move all movie content to the external drive (essentially meaning that drive will always need to be attached when you're working with your videos), or whether you just want to archive older videos off to the external drive.
If you want to move all videos, then just move the 'Movies' folder in your home directory to the external drive, then create an alias of the external 'Movies' back in to your home directory. Now the 'Movies' icon in your home directory will point to the external drive and everything will just work (as long as the external drive is attached when you launch iMovie)
If you want to archive older movies then each Movie should have its own subdirectory within your Movies folder. These can easily be moved off to the external drive, and moved back should you ever need to work on those movies again.

After clean install of Snow Leopard, Time Machine did not restore all files. When I try to restore these files I get "Not enough disk space" error. What do I need to do to get these important files back onto my Mac from my external hard drive??

After clean install of Snow Leopard, Time Machine did not restore all files. When I try to restore these files I get "Not enough disk space" error. What do I need to do to get these important files back onto my Mac from my external hard drive??

Janet.b wrote:
About 3 years old...pretty dated now I guess. Am thinking I may just need to have it upgraded by a Mac tech.
For what the Apple Store's charge you can buy almost buy a new computer.
Just for giggles I brought my old laptop in for a drive upgrade and asked, they wanted $600 for a drive that only cost $120 at the time and it was a slow 5,400 RPM drive. The new Mac's of a similar make were going for $1000.
I did the drive replacement myself, got a faster drive of better quality for $300 instead.
Then another time I asked for a RAM upgrade from 4GB to 8GB, they wanted to charge $400 + $35 for the labor.
The same RAM is on Crucial.com for $90 and all I need is a 00 micro phillips screwdriver.
So you see what's going on here.
I think what you should do, if your out of warranty/AppleCare, is to call up the local PC tech guy who also does Mac's and have them fix you right up.
They can offer more personalized care which you need. Clone your old drive to the new and everything.
With Apple they are overworked at the Genius Bar and just place roadblocks so you buy a new machine instead.
For instance, all new iMac's now have proprietary drive software installed on the hard drives for heat monitoring. So now the only choice a user has is to bring their iMac into a Apple Store for a very expensive drive upgrade, which a person then decides the money is better spent buying a new machine.

I am running iTunes on an IBM comp system Win XP with a 70gb hard disk. I have 4 kids with 4 IPOD Touches. Their apps and album art are eating up the hard disk space. I changed the Media Folder to an external hard disk. How do I get the apps to go their?

I am running iTunes on an IBM compatible system running Windows XP with a relatively small hard disk (70gb). I have 4 kids with 4 IPOD Touches, multiple IPOD Nanos, etc. Their apps and album art are eating up the hard disk space. I changed the Media Folder through Edit, Prferences, Advances, iTunes Media Folder to an external hard disk. The new music downloads and purchases go there but the apps and other items do not. How do I get the apps and other iTunes software and downloads to go to the external hard disk

There is no built in function to make this happen.
Your options are:
Upgrade the existing hard drive.
Try creating a link for the app folder on the external drive... this may or may not work.
Realistically, a larger hard drive is a better solution, then use the external drive for keeping a backup of the ENTIRE iTunes folder and any other personal data on the system.

How come free space on internal disk is decreasing when I am exporting videos to imovie library on external disk

Hi,
I am moving all the videos I have in my iphoto library on my computer to the imovie library (version 9.0.9 ) I have on an external disk to free some space on the internal disk.
Afterwards, I am deleting them from the iphoto library BUT I noticed that the free space on the internal disk does not increase. Movies are decreasing but the space is going to back ups. I am doing this process as I want to have more space on the internal disk. Do I do something wrong or is this the normal process ?
Also, I have Imovie (new version - which I am not using, at least not for the moment) and the old version (created when I updated) on my internal disk and a copy I made befor the update on an external disk.
Is it safe to delete the old version on the internal disk ?
Thanks for helping me out !

Hi,
On my mac I have iphoto and two versions of imovie - application that was created last october (2.9 gb -- so far I did not use this app) and 9.0.9 imovie folder (1,197,747,040 bytes - 1.22 GB on disk) .
On the external disk, I made a copy of 9.0.9 version some while ago (to be eaxct, before the new version was installed last october).
This what I do:
- import the video into imovie on my internet disk via "file, import, photos, iphoto library and select..."
- then I delete the videos from the iphoto event, emtpy trash in iphoto and empty trash on my dock
I photo version I am using is 9.5.
What do you mean with your third question ?
I back up on a 2nd external disk (used only for back up) with time machine.
When I check the space available (on this mac, more info, storage...) I noticed backups take up 7,6 GB. Before I started the above mentioned process of importing videos in imovie on the external disk the backups showed 0. What did I do wrong ?
Thanks for helping me out.
Brigitte

Can I move cache to external hard drive to save disk space for photoshop and bridge?

Can I move cache to external hard drive to save disk space for photoshop and bridge?

So could I take everything off my external hard drive, save it to my Mac, then re-format it for my Mac and move everything back to the external hard drive?
Yes. Keep in mind that you need to back up all data, including the data on an external drive. So if you're going to use the external drive to store original data, as opposed to backups, then you really need another one to back up the first one. You also need to back up the data on your internal drive, of course. This isn't optional. You must do it, or you'll lose everything sooner or later. All disk drives fail eventually, often with no warning.
If I do that how do I format the external hard drive for my Mac?
Launch the Disk Utility application and search the built-in help for "erase."
Would it be easier to just buy a external hard drive that is for a Mac?
All external hard drives work with Macs. Some might come pre-formatted for use with Macs, but it only takes a few minutes to do that yourself.

External Disk Space

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