Hard Drive Space Fluctuating?
Recently my Macbook Pro seems to be running a bit slower and the hard drive seems to be fluctuating between 9 GB of free space and 13 GB of free space without me downloading anything? Something must be wrong? Also sometimes when on safari a random download begins just titled log. Wondering if those problems are connected. Thanks!
Sounds like you don't have enough RAM in your computer the virtual memory system is working overtime using your hard drive for it's swap files.
Put more RAM in your computer and it should be fine.
Similar Messages
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Rapidly decreasing hard-drive space after upgrading to snow leopard
So... recently upgraded to SL on my just over 1 year old MBP. No problems at first, but now acting really... odd...
When I first upgraded I had moved a bunch of files over to an external drive to have enough hard drive space. Had 11GB open when I upgraded, up to 23GB after the upgrade. Then, the other night, I suddenly get a "your startup disk is full" message. I was shocked. Checked and sure enough, had something like 270KB open. I had not saved any new files on the hard drive since I upgraded. Right after I got this message my computer spazzed out and I got a "you must restart your computer" message. Did, and afterwords had 7GB of free space on my hard drive. Don't know what happened to my 23 from a few days prior...
Since then, I have gotten the "your startup disk is full" message several times. When I check, I have everything from 3GB to 0KB of free space. Usually a restart solves the problem for a few hours, but then it pops up again. (In fact, as I wrote that, the message popped up on my screen once again... when I started this post I had 500-something KB free. Currently have 257KB free... again... no files saved/downloaded in the past few days...)
I've never had a problem like this before, and this is BEYOND annoying at this point... considering I've lost all the free space I freed up BEFORE I even upgraded, not to mention the extra space I was supposed to get by upgrading in the first place... plus I've had to restart my computer 5-6 times over the past 2 days, which is more than I've had to do it in the year that I've owned it...
anyone else having similar problems? Any ideas as to what might be going on??So I'm having the same problem. I was converting songs in iTunes and browsing the web in Safari with a few torrents running in the background with Transmission. All the sudden the computer started hanging and I decided to restarted. After the restart, the Apple logo showed on the grey startup screen with a white progress bar (looked like a firmware update). When it completed and booted to the login screen I got a prompt that my startup disk was full and to delete some files. I know this can't be right because I had about 50GB free on my startup disk. Then after restart I noticed that the drive was fluctuating a lot! It first said I had ~250MB free, then jumped to 698 - 769MB!
I'm attempting a Snow Leopard install DVD startup and Disk Utility fix for repair and permissions. I really hope my HDD hasn't decided to randomly crap out. :-/ -
Where's my missing hard drive space?
I posted earlier about this, it may be a bit off topic but if anyone can offer a clue, I would appreciate it.
I got my win 7 upgrade and was waiting until vista started giving me headaches or the win7 service pack1 came out to upgrade...vista got me to upgrade today and I have to admit it was much less painful than i anticipated.
My question is about the missing hard drive space on my Idea center K230 on the box and on the side of the comp it claims a 640 HD (it claims in small print that up to 18gb may be used for the service partition) I questioned this when i first got it and even after deleting all the preloaded crap it was still saying 540 available out of 580GB....then I read that Lenovo has a huge partition for backup. So when I do my upgrade to win 7- 64 bit, I do a clean install and delete the smaller partition and reformat and expand the larger but before installing the new OS it says I have 596 available, so where the hell is the other 44GB of hard drive...did Lenovo rip us off and put 600GB hard drives in the K230's or is there a hidden partition still left that I cant find?
I am running everything off of my 596GB C: drive, I have my virus stuff and video card extras loaded, everything from the upgrade and 21 available patches and new drivers for most of my stuff....right now I am at at 575gb available and if i can ever find a printer driver that works I will create a backup point or disc from there, whatever win 7 allows. I never wanted the Lenovo one button back up and thought it was stupid to put a big glowing button on the keyboard that wipes your system back to when it came out of the box...I had nightmares of someone getting curious and going "what does this button do?"
.I notice I have a program files folder and a program files (x86) folder with a bunch of redundant files. what's the deal with this is Lenovo still hiding a backup program (maybe in that hidden partition?) that fills my hard drive twice as fast or is there a purpose for the file copies?
Any info on the above questions would be appreciated, and for those of you just looking for upgrade info I have good news, when you finally get your win7 upgrade disc it is the easiest windows installation ever, almost copmpletely automated, and very fast. So far the only sticking point is finding a printer driver, but I have 3 printers i can try, maybe one is supported.Hi wise2u!
You can read all the details about how storage manufacturers use multiples of 1000 to measure disk space, and Windows reports it in multiples of 1024, and there is some overhead for Windows, or you can just use this rule of thumb from wikipedia:
A general rule of thumb to quickly convert the manufacturer's hard disk capacity to the standard Microsoft Windows formatted capacity is 0.93*capacity of HDD from manufacturer for HDDs less than a terabyte and 0.91*capacity of HDD from manufacturer for HDDs equal to or greater than 1 terabyte.
0.93 * 640GB = 595GB, which is about what you're seeing.
I don't work for Lenovo. I'm a crazy volunteer! -
I have a new Windows tablet computer with limited hard drive space (32 GB), and cannot transfer my itunes library to the hard drive. Can I run itunes from an external hard drive? I have tried to follow some of the directions on this site, but am having no success. Thanks.
iTunes will run fine with the media on an external drive.
However, I suggest that a tablet computer with a tiny hard drive is not ideal as the primary computer for managing an iTunes library, even a small one. If you have another machine, perhaps a big, boxy, inexpensive old desktop with a decent amount of storage, that might be a better choice.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1364 -
I have macbook air mid 2011 .. Now i am losing my hard drive space without any apparent reason..I am not downloading anything not i am adding anything still that i am losing my hard drive space for no apparent reason..pls pls help..
I have never heard of a relation between the enabled state of Time Machine, and boot. Its probably coincidental.
Try booting in Safe Mode (hold down shift key, whilst booting). Then check for apllications in your Users & Groups preferences that are starting up with login. Disable all startup apps, then eanable them one at a time, booting normall. See which app is possibly hanging.
You can also try doing a Repair Permissions and Repair Disk on your startup drive. This must be done within Disk Utility when booted to your Recovery Partition. To boot to the Recovery Partition, hold down the OPTION key while booting, and select the Recovery Partition drive to boot from. Then run Disk Utility. -
Running out of hard drive space---can I use my external hard drive-??
I have a 16GB iPod nano. I hope I can explain my problem well enough.
My laptop computer has the iTunes that I use for syncing my iPod. It has over 25gb of songs in it, but my problem is that it has completely run out of hard drive space, and I don't think I can delete anything else.
I have a 250 GB external hard drive that also has all my songs backed up on it, that has hard drive space left on it.
Is there a way to load new music into the external hard drive, that will sync up to the iPod when I connect it to the laptop, WITHOUT putting a copy of it into the laptop, and taking up space-?
The way it appears to me, and I may be wrong, is that there are 2 copies of eaxh song on my laptop---the one in my music folder, and then the one in the iTunes folder. Is that correct-?
OR, is there a way to remove some of the songs from the laptop, and put them into the external hard drive, but will still sync up to the iPod-?
Thanks for any help that anyone can offer, I'm desperate ~!
I'm not sure if this can be done, but I'd hate to think that I cannot put new music onto my iPod.
Thanks~!Hello melbernai,
I think your best move would be to the move the entire iTunes library including of all of its file to your external hard drive and running your iTunes from there. You can even have it so that all newly imported music is saved to the external drive as well.
For more help on how to do this, I would check out this article on how to move and run your iTunes library from an external hard drive.
http://lifehacker.com/238296/ultranewb--how-to-move-your-itunes-library-to-an-ex ternal-drive
Hope this helps.
B-rock -
I had files stored on a hard drive that were not on my Mac. I used the hard drive for my first Time Machine back up, but it was not enough hard drive space to finish. Now those stored files are gone. Is there any way I can recover them? No, they were not part of previous Time Machine backups, and I have checked both the hard drive the documents were lost on and the new one that I now use for backups. Any suggestions would be helpful, as the lost files are old pictures that are gone forever. :[ Thanks!
1. Yes, if both drives are formatted as Mac OS Extended (Journaled).
2. Reformat the drives if needed, open the Time Machine pane of System Preferences, and remove the drive with the pictures from the list of items set to be excluded.
(110331) -
Can I connect an external hard drive to my time capsule to add virtual hard drive space?
I would like to make a 4 TB external hard drive available wirelessly on my home network. I have heard that I could connect it to my router or my Time Capsule to do this. Is this possible? Is there any special setup I need to do to enable this to work?
Additionally, I have two Macbooks in the house and have recently purchased a second Time Capsule. I would like to back up each computer to its own Time Capsule. Is there a configuration that would make this possible?
If the two Time Capsules are connected together via an ethernet cable (in extend the network mode), and one elects to back both of their computers up to the primary Time Capsule, does the primary use the secondary Time Capsule's hard drive space to continue backing up once it becomes full?
Thanks in advance for any advice you all may have for me in this situation!See if Pondini can help http://pondini.org/TM/Home.html
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How do I get more hard drive space for my Macbook Pro?
I am losing hard drive space and I don't know why? Is something writing or copying on my Macbook Pro?
Thank you...The Hatter..This may be helpful information. I go to force suit and there is both Safari and "Safari web content not responding in red" and this may
be the problem. I delete files and I get up to 50 to 50 MB and then it goes right back down to zero with no use on my part. I made a mistake by
viewing **** on a CHatterbate site and I think that this may be the problem. How do I get rid of this virus, if that is what is happening> I ran Clam X and
it did not find anything...Thank you, again. -
can i restrict apple mail client from downloading all emails...and allow it to pick a start date for gmail mail to sync? i am flooded with old emails, thousands on them ...eating hard drive space of my macbook pro and un necessary overhead
The genius bar technicians can check your MBP for possible hardware problems and specific software issues that you may have. The diagnosis will be free. Any extensive repairs will not be free.
If you have minor software problems, you essentially will have to deal with them yourself. Examine these two comprehensive documents for possible problem definition and solutions. If you encounter problems that you are unable to cope with, start a new discussion and there will be persons willing to assist you in solving them.
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3521
https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-3353
Ciao. -
What is using my hard drive space on my macbook pro
Something is using all my hard drive space and I cannot figure out what. Yesterday I had 120GB and now I have 120MB free and got a disk warning. I have noticed this past week that my space has been eaten up. My Mac Book Pro is 2 months old and I have not put any big or fancy programmes on it as I am still getting used to this being my first Mac. One of the selling points for getting a Mac is I heard its programmes took a lot less space. My previous PC that I had for 2 years had a 130GB hard drive and I had 20GB free when I gave it away. I cannot believe I have used all my 500GB hard drive space when I have only installed a few programmes on this one such as Notebook, Pages, and some accounting software. I cannot seem to find details of where the space is being used. Please help.
Mr_Joe wrote:
My Mac Book Pro is 2 months old
I cannot seem to find details of where the space is being used. Please help.
Empty the trash!
Where did my Disk Space go?
Slimming your hard drive
Seven ways to free up drive space
OmniDiskSweeper is a free utility that checks HD space.
FreeSpace cost $1 or is a free utility that checks HD space.
SpaceControl is a free utility that checks HD space.
FreeSpace cost $.99 - FreeSpace shows you how much space is available on all local, connected, and network drives with a single click.
You are still under warranty plus you still have 90 days of free phone tech support. Take advantage of it before it runs out! -
Hi everyone,
My 3.5 year old 15" Macbook Pro is running out of hard drive space, so I have been trying to clean out some of the dross. I recently found that there is a file called "Previous iTunes Library" in my iTunes folder that is taking up approximately 50Gb of space. I would love to delete this folder and reclaim the space, but I am not sure what it is or where it came from, and I don't want to lose music files accidentally. Can someone tell me (1) what this folder is and (2) if I can safely delete it?
Here is a screenshot of these folders and their sizes:
Thanks for the help!Hello facetious1212,
Take a look at this part of the article named iTunes: What are the iTunes library files? Found here http://support.apple.com/kb/ht1660.
Tip: New versions of iTunes sometimes include enhancements to the iTunes library. When you open the new version of iTunes, iTunes upgrades your existing library to the new format and places a copy of the old library in the Previous Libraries folder. If everything goes fine during your upgrade to the latest version of iTunes, you can delete the older iTunes Library files.
All the very best,
Sterling -
Solutions for lots of hard drive space?
Yes, this is a repost from my thread in the getting started forum, but I figured that this board is more heavily populated, and perhaps some professional videographers visit here more frequently to help me out, so I'm posting my question here as well. Here I go:
Hello,
Next spring and summer, I plan to be shooting and editing weddings. The past weddings I've done, I use about 12 tapes. ~200mb/min x 60 mins x 12 tapes is about 144GB. That's about 3 weddings in a single 500GB hard drive (and I plan on doing about 20 in a year). Obviously, I'm going to need a LOT of hard drive space. I don't want to consider entirely deleting the media after finishing a project because it seems common that clients wish to change little bits of the video, so I want to keep them for a while longer.
Right now I have a 500GB HD in a firewire400 enclosure. I don't use the internal Mac HD for media.
What a photographer said that others wedding videographers do and suggested to me was to buy as many HD's needed for the year (approx. so I guess about 7 if 500GB), set a deadline for those whiny clients for returns or re-edits and such, and at the end of the year, and reformat them all and reuse them for the next year.
I'm thinking of doing the same, but using the same enclosure for all my hard drives, just unplugging and plugging as needed.
I've heard of using a RAID system. I can't say I know much about using it but with what I'm using, I don't think it's an option? I am using a 17" 2.33ghz MacBook Pro with Final Cut Pro and I plan on getting an aluminum 24" iMac (probably 2.4ghz unless you can convince me otherwise) as a secondary editing machine, and perhaps to make the dreadful capturing process twice as fast.
So some of my questions are:
* can plugging and unplugging HD's to an external closure possibly damage the pins?
* would storing HD's that are not being used at the moment be safe in those plastic containers that usually come with a HD when you buy one? Or would it be damaging to keep one in there and store it away for a year?
* is this idea okay or would you suggest another method?
* slightly off-topic but sometimes I take my external hard drive, put it in my laptop bag, and do some editing at another location. I know it's supposed to be portable but someone told me that external hard drives aren't meant to be taken around like that. Is that true or am I okay? It's just sitting sideways in the bag while I walk/drive, it's not like I'm hiking a mountain and dropping my bag.
Thanks in advance for all your help.321estrellas wrote:
- I wonder if enclosure manufacturers do special orders of JUST the enclosure without the cables and power adapter? Since I'll likely be buying the same one but plugging one at a time...(maybe one other for another computer)
Not sure if they will or not. Of course, IMO, it is not bad to have an extra Power Adapter and cables (or more), just in case. You would be suprised how things can get misplaced or when you really would like another FW or eSATA cable. You can call some of these places and ask, it nevers hurts. I have had very good experiences with Firewiredirect, OWC/MacSales and Wiebetech, probably worth a customer service IM window with them or call or email. Worst they can say it is not possible.
- Alternatively the Wiebtech SilverSata I enclosure seems pretty convenient and maybe I'll expand it with 6-8 additional trays...but again I may want to use another HD in another computer but I'm sure I can figure a way around that...
If you get a G5 or MacIntel they all use the same drives so if you remove it from a tray you can put it in the computer. I like the SilverSata I because it is relatively small and light and I will often throw a 750gig Drive into a tray when traveling to have a place to capture things and keep copies of photo downloads, audio files for Soundtrack and other files which take up room and a partition for a boot/repair/restore disk for the laptop. -
A couple months ago, I activated photo stream using my apple ID. I was under the impression that all the photos uploaded to my photo stream would only use server space on icloud and wouldn't actually utilize disk space, or at the most, the option was available to only download specific photos to my hard drive. My hope was that I could upload the photos to a specific drive, and view the uploaded thumbs or low-res comps on any device as a reference.
This is not the case.
What I have found is that iphoto has been automatically downloading any and all photos uploaded to my photo stream. Not just the thumbnails, the entire thumbnail + all resolutions. I shoot RAW photos so in my case, the original averages about 15-25MB per photo.
I have been uploading directly to an iphoto library on an external hard drive specifically designated for handling all my RAW high-res images.
What has been happening is all those RAW files are also being uploaded directly to my iphoto library on my iMac and eating up memory which I cannot reclaim, even after deactivating my Photo Stream in preferences. We're talking almost 100 GB of memory is tied up right now.
I don't want to just go in and start deleting files and folders in my Masters folder, since I have heard this will break iphoto, but the photos in my photostream do not show up in any event and I need to reclaim the hard drive space.
How can I safely delete them?If the files are loose inside the iPhoto library package here's one way to get them out:
1 - open your library, select all of the photos in the library and add a unique keyword, XXXX, to all of them.
2 - Rebuild the library with iPhoto Library Manager as follows:
Using iPhoto Library Manager to Rebuild Your iPhoto Library
1 - download iPhoto Library Manager and launch.>Click on the Add Library button,
2 - select the library you want to add from those in the selection window.
3 - make sure that in the rebuild window the checkbox "Scavange orphaned photos" is checked.
4 - now that the library is listed in the left hand pane of iPLM, click on your library and go to the Library ➙ Rebuild Library menu option
5 - in the next window name the new library and select the location you want it to be placed. Click on the Create button.
Note 1: This creates a new library based on the LIbraryData.xml file in the library and will recover Events, Albums, keywords, titles and comments. However, books, calendars, cards and slideshows will be lost.
Note 2: Your current library will be left untouched for further attempts at a fix if so desired.
3 - open the library, create a smart album with the criterial "Keyword is not XXXX".
4 - the smart album will include those photos that were not visible in your original library. Select them and use the key combination of Command+Option+Delete to move them to the iPhoto Trash bin.
5 - empty the iPhoto Trash bin via the iPhoto ➙ Empty iPhoto Trash Bin menu option.
6 - empty the Trash bin in the Dock to remove the files from your hard drive completely.
Be sure to read Note 1 above. You can use the new library without your books, slideshow, etc. and it will not contain those errant files. Of course delete the original library if the new one is satisfactory. -
How do I find what's using my hard drive space
My wife has a 14" iBook. How do I find what's using all the hard-drive space? It only has a 40GB hard-drive (it's one of the older G3 models) but there isn't a lot loaded onto the HD. There is only 3GB space left. I've gone through every application and utility and document and every folder (document, movie, etc.) and the largest space-hogging folder is iTunes which uses 15GB because of the music. I can't find any singular folder that uses any sizeable HD space. I recently loaded Tiger so I don't know if Tiger uses the rest of the space or if it's just a combo of all the other applications.
You could download and use WhatSize to see what may be eating up the space.
With a 40 GB hard drive, you need to keep at least 6 GB free in order to avoid problems.
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