Mystery HDD memory

I was on my finder 2day, and i noticed that my HDD space kept shrinking. I was not downloading nything, but it was shrinking. it went from 70 to 69.16 gb.
Also, i've noticed that my hdd size decreases everyday! how can i stop this and why is this happening. I have a 160 gig macbook. when i got it, it had 140 or something of that sort. i used up 50 gigs worth of memory w/ my personal stuff. This leaves me w/ 90 gigs. what has happened with the rest of the 20 gigs?
Can Onyx fix this?

When you say shrinking, have you lost 20Gig right from the start and that's it, or is it actively and currently shrinking in size while you sit and do nothing?
Unformatted hard drives may have a physical size of Xgb, but when you format them the size becomes X minus a little bit, gb. I'm not up on my hard drives, hopefully a more learned user will read this post and help you out, but I imagine that a lot of space is taken up by the routing table information, and when each block is allocated this must take space? (Someone who understands please help out here)
Either way I know you loose a little bit, though I must say 20Gb seems like a lot. Post an answer to my first question and this may help someone who has a greater knowledge help you out!
Jamie

Similar Messages

HDD Memory

A while ago, I posted a topic on my mb's missing hdd memory. It was mysteriously disappearing. So, I've been investigating. I believe I found the problem. I have parallels installed, and I have allocated 30gb to it. It has windows xp. So, I realized that whenever I put files in virtual machine, it takes up extra space in my OS X and the part of 30gb of the virtual machine. Can I fix this? If so, how?
Thanks.

You can upgrade from 10.5 to 10.6 with no problems. Any program that runs under 10.5 should run under10.6. See this list for compatibility with 10.6: http://snowleopard.wikidot.com/ You might have to upgrade some drivers for printers, etc.... And you will have to install Rosetta if you have any Power PC applications http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/snow_leopard_installing_rosetta/
To upgrade your iLife and iWork. If you only want iPhoto or other single apps from iLife '11 you can get them from the App Store after you've upgraded to 10.6.6. iPhoto, iMovie or Garage Band for $15 each and Pages, Keynote or Numbers from iWork '09 for $20 each.
You can order a Snow Leopard 10.6 install disk for $29 as long as you have at least 1gb of RAM and 5gb of free space on your hard drive. http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC573Z/A?mco=MTY3ODQ5OTY
Once you are at 10.6.8 you can buy Lion for $29 from the App Store. Lion will require at least 2gb of RAM but really needs 4gb to run smoothly. As for programs see this list for compatibility with 10.7 http://roaringapps.com/apps:table Also Lion doesn't run any Power PC programs. To see if you have any Power PC programs go to the Apple in the upper left corner and select About This Mac, then click on More Info. When System Profiler comes up select Applications under Software. Then look under Kind to see if any of your applications are listed as Power PC. Universal and Intel will run under Lion.
Before Mac switched to Intel processors they used Power PC processors from 1994 to 2005. Power PC 601 through 604, G3, G4 and G5. Applications written for the Power PC processors need the application called Rosetta to run on Intel processors. This was part of the Operating System in 10.4 and 10.5 but was an optional install in 10.6. With 10.7 Lion Apple dropped all support for Power PC applications.

Which Apple MacBook Pro has the most RAM and HDD memory?

I would like to know this because I plan on buying a MacBook Pro and I just want to make sure I'm buying the one with the most RAM and HDD memory and not some other one. Why do I need specifically this? Because I'm a gamer; I like playing games. I'm a watcher too; I like watching movies. Last but not least, I would like to sync my iPhone to a device that's from the same company. I don't know why, but I guess it's because I don't like uncoordination, or something like that. In short, I don't believe in "clashing". Even electronics.

The Hardware In Any Mac is Exactly the same as used in Any PC of like model year and included hardware. i7 being faster then an i5 CPU.
Apple uses the same exact Intel CPUs and Chipsets that all other computer use manfacturer today. There is No difference.
Ogelthorpe is comppletely correct that Windows, by nature of the OS, is better for running games and the hardware it comes on, by nature of the way they are manufactured even though it is the same hardware as in a Mac, is better for gaming because of the way they are cooled and the overall case design. More air vents and better air movement across the parts that get hot while gaming.
Mac notebooks on the other hand don't cool as well by nature of the air intake and exhaust systems. Both air intake and exhaust are at the screen hinge and the fans are designed to be quieter then on most Windows PC notebooks. Even if Windows is installed on Mac that Mac will run hotter then a PC with the same exact hardware configurations. This is a fact and experienced by many Mac users. Including myself.
Mac fans run all the time. From the second you start them up to the second they shut down completely. I personally don't know of any Windows PC notebook that do that. My Dell E6420 with the exact same CPU and more RAM, 16GBs in the Dell and 8 in my Mac, with the Dell having 2 drives, one a SSD the other a Spinner in the media bay, and the Mac having only one Seagate XT series in the main bay the Dell fans rarely come on unless I am taxing the system in some way. They are not on continuously and certainly not when I turn the system on. So Apple has designed the Mac to run the fans continuously to try and keep the system cool from the first power on.
So your statement is completely false. But it is what most people think even though it is unfounded.
ShaneBunting wrote:
This is not true. The hardware is simply better on a Mac. Even when running Windows on a Mac, you'll have a far better experience than on a PC..

Mid 2009 MacBook Pro HDD Memory Leakage

When I leave my mid-2009 MBP running for a couple hours, my HDD memory decrease by about 20 GB, even though i have not downloaded anything. If I leave it running overnight, it will typically decrease by close to 40 GB. Does anyone know why this is happening, and how, or if, it can be fixed?

Sure, keep an eye on processes in activity monitor, see if any are doing alot of work continuously.
Also keep an eye on Disk I/O in activity monitor.
Finally use activity monitor again to see how much free/inactive RAM you have, if you have alot free/unused during the crazy hard disk filling period, you know its NOT a swap issue.
When you have isolated the process writing to disk (and it WILL be some process)
you can remove it, or stop it running, or, if it's a required system process, just put up with it.
Message was edited by: JohnAlanWoods

MacBookPro HDD memory usage

Hi, I have a MacBookPro and I want to know what's the best way to see where HDD memory is being used.
I am running close to the HHD limit and want to clear out unwanted files.
As far as I'm aware I don't have any large files left on the computer (except my iTunes library).
Any help would be much appreciated.

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities
If you are using OS X Lion or Mountain Lion, there's a simple way to see what takes up the storage on the hard disk. Just open the Apple menu > About this Mac > More Info > Storage. See > http://pondini.org/OSX/LionStorage.html
If you are using an older OS X, you can find the storage taken in Disk Utility, for example. Open Disk Utility, select “Macintosh HD” on the sidebar and the used space will appear at the bottom of that application

Mystery HDD usage

hello all,
I haev an old Powermac G4/533 that i use as a file server, and it also does some light local stuff ( runs scanner etc.)
Has 10.3.latest on it.
Two internal HDDs - 40 GB main; 80 GB backup. Plus an external FW 2 TB that is used as a NFS.
Here's the issue: If i "get info" on the main drive it shows 35/40 GB used. But if i open it up and count up all the major folders, there's maybe 15 GB of stuff on it. /Users, for instance is only about 5GB.
I even made invisible files visible and saw the same thing.
Any idea what's going on? 20 GB of mystery files - or misleding index entries - exist somewhere.
Grant

Well, i did a lot of digging, and there are some mysterious differences. I'm using "du" as the final word. unfortunately that approach makes me plow through voluminus stuff, so i dont have an answer as to what it was per se. But even on normally working machines i am seeing differences betwene what du says, what get info says, and what i can add up, even lookign at "hidden" folders.
But nothing like that G4. Difference on my MBP for example is about 8%. See the delta below! (>> 100%)
So i wiped the G4 main drive (after cloning of course). And reinstalled from scratch, replacing all apps, drivers, docs, desktop crap, etc. Some weeding, but nothing of any size.
Old vs. new, same documents, music, apps (for the most part) etc.
Old: ~35GB used
New `13.346GB used
10.2 clean - 2.7 GB
10.3 clean - 5.7GB
Running faster, smaller.
Wish i knew what was going on, but it was something wrong and major (in terms of storage efficiency).....
Grant

HT201250 Can I make my iMac think it has more (HDD) memory (not RAM) by using disk utility and an external 500GB drive?

I have a Macbook Pro and iMac which are both great. But my 500gb hard drive isn't big enough to backup my 320GB MB PRO
I thought maybe I can attach my HDD to my iMac to give it more memory. Then backup to the iMac
If this isn't possible, could I login as an iMac user on my macbook pro and just have a mini server using my iMac and MB PRO? (My sister and parents use the iMac as their primary computer, i use my MB Pro as mine, so they would have to be able to use the computer at the same time as me using my macbook)
In otherwords, I just want to be able to back up wireleslly but still acces all my files on both computers offline.

If you're talking about TIme Machine backup, it should be dleting as it goes but I agree you need more to run that effectively.
One solution, instead of TM would be to make a bootable clone with either SuperDuper or CarbonCopy Cloner
and use that as your backup solution until you get a disk large enough for TM.

Mystery Virtual memory/disk usage

I have installed SL on a Mac Mini and MBP with no problem. But now I have installed it on a Macbook and something is eating the disk and/or virtual memory.
After a fresh reboot I have 120G free disk space. This steadily reduces until the OS starts popping up the force quit dialog saying that I am out of application memory. Quitting applications has minimal effect and soon I am forced to reboot. At which point I am back to 120G of free disk space.
I have had a look at it with activity monitor as well as top and there are no real standouts in terms of of real memory or virtual memory. Perhaps it is something crashing over and over again, but there is nothing in /cores.
Any suggestions on how I can track this down?

Hi Andrew and welcome to the forums
Any suggestions on how I can track this down?
In the Finder, do command-f and when that search window opens, set to search your mac & set filters (add/+) to show all visible and hidden files over a certain size, say 1 or 2 gb or larger....it may take a couple tries depending on max file sizes that legitimately sit on your drive, etc. - see what shows up and go from there. Good luck in any case.

Mysterious missing memory

I've just noticed about 8GB of memory appears to be missing from my Mac Mini... It has a 74.41GB capacity, but when I add up all the content of the folders in the Macintosh HD and the available memory, I only get to 66.8GB. What could be taking the rest of it up? I've only got about 5GB of available memory left and I often download large files (films from iTunes etc), so could this mean I need to think about defragging the hard drive? What would happen if I tried repairing the disc?

Hi Shofu, and a warm welcome to the forums!
OK, we're actually talking about Free Disk space, which can be used as Virtual Memory, but Memory is actually the RAM you have in your Mini.
OmniDiskSweeper is now free...
http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/download/
That'll show you your files & sizes.
If you download Movies I'd consider getting an external Firewire drive to put them on, your Mini will run safer & faster if you can free up 20-30 GB.
There are many hidden files & Folders that won't show up. like Logs, etc..
At this point I think you should also get Applejack...
http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596
After installing, reboot holding down CMD+s, (+s), then when the DOS like prompt shows, type in...
applejack AUTO
Then let it do all 5 of it's things.
At least it'll eliminate some questions if it doesn't fix it.
The 5 things it does are...
Correct any Disk problems.
Repair Permissions.
Clear out Cache Files.
Repair/check several plist files.
Dump the VM files for a fresh start.

Mysterious HDD errors

Whenever installing packages from the CD distribution, I get the following unhelpful error:
ata2.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
ata2.00: unexpected or too much trailing data buf=131072 cur=131072 bytes=2048
ata2.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:fc/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 pio 131072 in
cdb 28 00 00 00 03 c7 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
res 58/00:02:00:00:08/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x2 (HSM violation)
ata2.00: status: { DRDY DRQ }
Is there any way to increase the size of this buffer that is apparently full, or to slow down aif so it won't hammer the HDD into submission? I'm somewhat new to *nix.

Whenever installing packages from the CD distribution, I get the following unhelpful error:
ata2.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x6 frozen
ata2.00: unexpected or too much trailing data buf=131072 cur=131072 bytes=2048
ata2.00: cmd a0/00:00:00:00:fc/00:00:00:00:00/a0 tag 0 pio 131072 in
cdb 28 00 00 00 03 c7 00 00 40 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
res 58/00:02:00:00:08/00:00:00:00:00/a0 Emask 0x2 (HSM violation)
ata2.00: status: { DRDY DRQ }
Is there any way to increase the size of this buffer that is apparently full, or to slow down aif so it won't hammer the HDD into submission? I'm somewhat new to *nix.

Mysterious HDD/SSD Problems

Hi Community,
I have a problem, I can't explain:
I have a 2009 unibody MacBook Pro (A1286). I have replaced my optical drive with the original HDD and installed a SSD in the HDD slot. Everything worked fine for half a year. Yesterday I wasn't able to start my Mac. The blinking folder with a question mark showed up. So I started the Mac with the C key and started the disc manager. Only the HDD was displayed. So I put the HDD in the first slot and the SSD in the second slot. The Mac started without any problems from the SSD and the HDD was also displayed in Finder. I could access the data from both the SSD and the HDD. I switched back to the old setup (SSD in slot one and HDD in slot two). When I wanted to start the Mac the blinking question mark folder shows up again. Also the SSD isn't displayed in the Disc Manager. How is that possible?
Thanks in advance!

2009 models are notorious for having bad SATA cables in the HD bay - sounds as if yours simply failed.
And I don't doubt that the SSD wouldn't show up when installed in the optical bay - some SATA connectors for the optibay just won't support a SSD.
I would suggest that you visit www.ifixt.com and search for the Apple part number for your main SATA cable. Armed with the part number you can probably find a replacement cable on eBay.
I'm 99% certain that there's a fault - just now failing - with the SATA cable.
Clinton

PX30t AIO HDD & Memory Install Video

Just wanted to share a video I made on how to upgrade the memory and / or hard drive in a Toshiba PC30t AIO.
Here is the youtube link:
http://youtu.be/V41_ha_Rmdw
Hope you all like it!

Nice contribution, David.
-Jerry

E93z HDD & Memory Install Video

Just thought I'd share a video I created on the Thinkcentre E93z. In the video I show you how to upgrade the memory and / or hard drive in this all in one unit.
the link is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVF2BbNBHwA&list=UU1Bg9SDczXDHcYt8p_OArxg&feature=share&index=3
Hope you like it.

I have also created a couple of videos on the E73z:
Unboxing the Lenovo E73z AIO
How to upgrade the Lenovo E73z AIO
Let me know what you think?

Zero space on hdd and can't go to os

After my hdd memory got full and said zero space available it halted so i restart it. Now it won't go to os just blank white page with mouse/touchpad moves but no menu or anything I'm locked out . any hidden features? Or before it gets to mac somewhere I can delete something ....
Please help
Latest Mac mini latest os and updates

You will need to reformat the drive at this point. I hope your files are backed up.
Install or Reinstall Mavericks or Mountain Lion from Scratch
Be sure you backup your files to an external drive or second internal drive because the following procedure will remove everything from the hard drive.
OS X Mavericks- Erase and reinstall OS X
OS X Mountain Lion- Erase and reinstall OS X
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible
because it is three times faster than wireless.

Usb port issues losing memory

I have Macbook unibody 2008 and a strange issue , when i plug in something in my usb ports, hdd memory goes down, decrease......and the notebook work slowly, only solutions it.s reboot the notebook, very frustrating.....anyone have this issue ? any help ? thanks

Are you using original Sony Mobile chargers/cables to perform this function?
PS: Please don't force the charger under any circumstance.
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Mystery HDD memory

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