Startup Disk full. I have external backup drive. Can I delete folders in My Lightroom photos?

I am using Mac Intel OSX Lion. I received a screen message that stated my startup disk is full. I am positive this is due to my 10,000 or so photos (mostly RAW files) stored in My Lightroom photos folders. Since my photos are externally backed up can I delete those 9000-10,000 photos in various folders of My Lightroom? And by doing this do I free up disk space in my computer's hard drive?
I might also mention that photos created in LR5 are saved to folders in the Mac's Pictures area under "Favorites." So am I duplicating, i.e, doubling the file hogging capacity, because it is in Pictures and also in LR5. Any help is much appreciated.

Jim,
See my posted title: I backed up all 9000+ photos in 3 external hard drives. Two are full but the third still has a lot of capacity. All photos are saved in lossless .dng file. I don't have a problem going back to those external drive files if I want to do more post processing with the photos. I fail to understand why my startup disk on the Mac is full as the great majority of file space taken up are from LR5 photos. I only have two or three Mac Applications: Swift Publisher and Quicken Essentials, both of which do not require huge hard disk space.
By the way, those 9000+ RAW files are also stored in Pictures in the Mac. 9000 files each about 20Mb I calculate to 180Gb. Am I right?

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perzennstrom:
Welcome to Apple Discussions.
What is the total capacity of your HDD? You need to maintain a minimum of 15% of total disk capacity as contiguous free space. This allows for free space for swap files and for growing the Extents Overflow file of the directory. Since you need contiguous space, maintaining a buffer of 20% of disk capacity gives you a safer margin.
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I keep getting "startup disk full" message even when I already moved all my files/documents to an external hard disk

Dear all,
What should I do? I keep getting the "startup disk full" message even when I already moved all my files and documents to an external hard disk.
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For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article.
Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:
iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash
Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then reboot. That will temporarily free up some space.
According to Apple documentation, you need at least 9 GB of available space on the startup volume (as shown in the Finder Info window) for normal operation. You also need enough space left over to allow for growth of your data. There is little or no performance advantage to having more available space than the minimum Apple recommends. Available storage space that you'll never use is wasted space.
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You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) to explore your volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one.
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ODS can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.
Back up all data now.
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Install ODS in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.
Triple-click anywhere in the line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C:
sudo /Applications/OmniDiskSweeper.app/Contents/MacOS/OmniDiskSweeper
Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:
☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)
☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.
☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.
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I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything while running ODS as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.
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How to move Startup Disk clone from one external drive to another?

I thought this would be a question easily answered on the WWW and easily found via search engines, but so far no luck, hence this question.
Prior to upgrading from Lion to Mountain Lion I followed some very good instructions from Tom Nelson on ask.com (http://macs.about.com/od/backupsarchives/ss/diskbackup.htm) related to using Disk Utility to clone my internal Macintosh HD drive to an external hard drive, making it a bootable drive. I cloned to a very nice LaCie external FW drive that had far more room than that needed for the clone. This drive booted just fine as a startup disk, so mission accomplished:   I have now a bootable clone of my Lion system prior to upgrading to Mountain Lion.
The upgrade to Mountain Lion went well, and now, before I put any additional apps or much additional data on the original internal Macintosh HD drive, I want to use Disk Utility again to clone the drive so I'll have a snapshot of the system right after the upgrade to Mountain Lion.
Questions:
Is there any way to use the same LaCie drive that now holds the Lion startup disk clone to hold the yet-to-be-done Mountain Lion startup disk clone?
If not, how can I move the Lion startup disk clone from the oversized LaCie external drive to a drive more the size of the Lion clone (approx 140G)?   The LaCie drive is far too roomy and nice to have sitting gathering dust for only 140G to be used in an emergency restore.
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Good info Csound1, and thanks.
So my final question (I think): How does one move/copy a startup disk clone from one external drive to another, and still have it bootable on the new external drive?   I'm still considering freeing this LaCie drive up for more dynamic storage and getting another drive for the bootable startup disk clones IF I can move this Lion startup disk clone to a new external drive.
I guess the summary question is:   how does one clone a startup disk clone? As I think about this, and recall the Disk Utility screens, couldn't I simply select the Lion clone on the LaCie FW external drive and do the same operation I did with the original internal Lion drive? Basically the same steps as before but this time the source is the LaCie FW external and the destination is a new external drive?
Thanks again; wonderful forum here with very smart people.

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