Startup Disk & RAM

hi.
for months now, i've been getting a "startup disk full" warning on my ibook. i've deleted much - languages, programs i don't use, files i no longer need, etc. i also upgraded my RAM at this time - thinking this would resolve my problem. i now have loads of memory on my ibook, but the same "startup disk full" problem.
available hd space: 1.58 GB (out of 27.82 GB)
RAM: built-in - 256 MB, recently installed - 512 MB
this is an ibook G4, OSX - 10.3.9
my question is this - is there anything that can be stored on the RAM that's currently on the hard drive & how do i move it?
secondary question - i have a 512 MB USB JumpDrive... can i store anything on that to free up some of this space?
i have a lot of music, podcasts, etc, as well as photos on my laptop. i'm not sure what else is taking up so much room.
thanks for your help. durbie
ibook g4 Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Hi durbie, & likewise, Welcome.
In addition to John's excellent advice, there are Applications, language support files and printer drivers that you can delete to free up space.
For example, on my iBook, I have removed GarageBand from Apps and its Loops from HD>Library>Application Support. As my iBook only has a combo drive and I'm not into video editing anyway I have trashed iDVD (Not DVD player). I have also trashed preloaded games and World Book, and its associated files.
Language support files can be removed using Monolingual. Do not remove any English language files, though.
Printer drivers are in the HD>Library>Printers folder. You can safely delete any named drivers that you don't have a printer for. For example, if you have a Canon, you can remove Epson, Lexmark, Hewlett Packard drivers. Epson alone takes up in excess of 1gb. You can even remove specific drivers from within the manufacturer's folder. For example, if you have an Epson C86 you can safely trash any other specific drivers in the Epson folder like C46, C66 etc. If, at a later date, you buy a printer whose driver you removed they can be added from your install disk, the disk that comes with the printer or downloaded.
Check, too, in your music folder. It is possible that you have, say, 'xyz song' in the first level of your Music folder and the same song in Music>iTunes>iTunes Library. If you are sure that you do have 'xyz song' in iTunes, it is safe to delete from 'Music'. The same applies to Pictures and iPhoto Library.
When you have finished dumping your unwanted stuff in the trash, don't forget to empty it. You haven't regained the space until you do
Lastly, if in doubt, ask. No-one here will mind answering a post such as "Is it safe to trash 'This App' or 'That File'". We have all had to learn. For myself the vast proportion of my learning has been here.
Have fun!
Adrian
ibook G4 1GHz, 768mb; iMac 17" G4:768mb (10.3.9) Mac OS X (10.4.6) Belkin WiFi F5D7632

Similar Messages

Process "deskjet" is using up over 1GB of RAM and over 60GB of VRAM after an hour or so of use. ALSO, "Your startup disk has no more space" error.

The blowers will kick on and I get the: "Your mac os x startup disk has no more space available for application memory." with a list of running apps that aren't going over anything abnormal (Chrome, Finder, Activity Monitor). Quitting any of the applications that appear the dialog continues to pop up. Performance doesn't appear to suffer but the computer definitely acts like it's busy with only a few applications open, however force quitting deskjet slows down the blowers (fans).
I have 20GB remaining on my boot drive. I have also lived several months with less than 5GB remaining and have never seen this error from Mac OS X 10 - 10.8. The only thing different between then and now is the boot drive is a SSD.
I focus on the printer drivers because that's something I can't find anywhere else through Google or Discussion searches. The "startup disk" error has some hits that I have yet to go through completely, although initial results show that it may be a vague bug/leak with SSDs.
(Edit: After clearing up another GB or so and 10 minutes of "deskjet" being killed, it's the longest I've gone without the dialog popping up. Although once I restart that driver will go out of control again).
-Less than a month old clean installation of Mountain Lion 10.8.2
-Early 2008 MBP
-SSD bootdrive
-500GB secondary HDD
-4GB RAM
-Permissions have been repaired just yesterday.
-SMC and PRAM reset as well, although it won't hurt to do it again when I get back home.

Why is my computer slow?
..Step by Step to fix your Mac

MacPro with10.7.3. running a Python script in terminal I see a : "There is no more application memory available on your startup disk". Python uses 10G of 16G RAM and VM =238G with 1TB free. Log: macx-swapon FAILED - 12. It only happens with larger inputs

On my MacPro with10.7.3. while running a Python script in terminal, after a while, in several hours actually, I see a system message for the Terminal app: "There is no more application memory available on your startup disk". Both RAM and VM appear to be fine at this point, i.e. Python uses only 10G of 16G RAM and VM =238G with ~1TB free. Log reads: " macx-swapon FAILED - 12" multiple times. Furthermore, other terminal windows can be opened and commands run there. It only happens with larger inputs (text files), but with inputs that are about half the size everything runs smoothly. So the issue must be the memory indeed, but where to look for the problem/fix?

http://liulab.dfci.harvard.edu/MACS/README.html
Have you tried with the --diag flag for diagnostics? Or changing verbose to 3 to show debug messages? Clearly one of three things is happening;
1. You ARE running out of disk space, but once it errors out the space is reclaimed if the output file is deleted on error. When it fails, does your output have the content generated up to the point of termination?
2. The application (Terminal) is allocated memory that you are exceeding
3. The task within Terminal is allocated memory that you are exceeding
I don't know anything about what this does but is there a way to maybe run a smaller test run of it? Something that takes 10 minutes? Just to see if it works.

RAM Doubler broken by OS 9 Startup Disk control panel

After setting up a PowerBook G3 with OS 9.2.2, thought I'd install RAM Doubler since it has only 128MB of RAM (and just for nostalgia's sake). Seems to work fine (of course, had to install the two OS 9 RD updates), but then I started from an external disk to run Disk Warrior on it, and when I returned to the internal disk RAM Doubler was disabled "because it had been moved". I remember RD had a piracy-protection system to prevent copying; apparently this was triggered somehow.
Experimentation determined that the trigger was the Startup Disk control panel: if this control panel is even opened, without changing any settings, RD is immediately disabled. Though the alert suggests "Restart your computer to run more applications," this doesn't work; RD must be reinstalled at this point.
I assume this is a bug that appeared in Mac OS 9 sometime after Connectix went out of business, so was never addressed/fixed. (I haven't tried this with 9.0.x or 9.1.) It can be avoided by not using the Startup Disk control panel, instead using the C key to start up from a CD, or cmd-opt-shift-delete to force startup from an external disk. Either of these expedients does not affect RD, but the Startup Disk control panel kills it.
Anyone else run into this? Any thoughts, solutions?

Hi, HandyMac -
There have been a few posts over the years indicating that RamDoubler can't quite get to full compatibility with OS 9. This may have to do with some applications in OS 9 having the ability to use dynamic memory allocation, a function probably not expected by RamDoubler.
As Baby Boomer suggests, leaving RamDoubler off and using the OS's native Virtual Memory function should prove to be more stable.
Best is to increase the physical RAM in the machine. I have 896MB RAM in this G4, and am able to leave Virtual Memory off.

Startup Disk is Locked?

I'm working on an older Mac (G3 Blue & White PowerPC w/OS 8.6) for a customer and there are many problems. The one I'm facing now is an error that reads "Startup Disk is locked. Your changes will not be saved when you quit Sherlock. This happened when I clicked Sherlock in the Apple Menu.
I'm wondering if this problem is causing the other problems as well. Some of those include will not boot to original desktop without the OS CD. Missing .Pics folder...this being the most critical loss. Startup Disk and Apple Talk are the only two Control Panels. Chooser, Control Panels and Sherlock are the only things in the Apple Menu.
I've retrived her documents from the hard drive but not the pictures.
I'm kinda new to Mac's (if you haven't noticed) but learning everyday!
Love em'
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks!
PhilW
Dual 867 MHz PowerPC G4 Mirrored Door Mac OS X (10.4.5) 1GB DDR Ram, 80 GB HD

Hi, PhilW -
...will not boot to original desktop without the OS CD.
It sounds like the machine is being booted to the OS Install CD.
Startup Disk and Apple Talk are the only two Control Panels. Chooser, Control Panels and Sherlock are the only things in the Apple Menu.
Those are the only items of those kinds included in the OS on an OS Install CD.
Although an OS Install CD will install a more complete OS, with a full assortment of control panels, Apple Menu items, extensions, etc., the OS on the CD, which is what is running the machine when the machine is booted to the CD, has a very limited assortment of them.
The one I'm facing now is an error that reads "Startup Disk is locked. Your changes will not be saved when you quit Sherlock.
That is not an error. When the machine is booted to a CD, the CD is the startup disk. Since such a CD can not be written to under any circumstances (which is one of their advantages), it is, in effect, a locked disk.
With the machine booted to the CD, have you tried selecting the OS on the hard drive in the Startup Disk control panel? It may be that the CD was the last boot volume set in that control panel, hence set in PRAM; and that is why it seems not able to boot unless the CD is in the drive. Resetting the boot volume in Startup Disk would be the solution for that.
If there is no selectable OS on the hard rive presented in Startup Disk, that would indicate one of three things -
• The System Folder on the hard drive has become 'unblessed'. The solution for that is to re-bless it. To do that, go to the System Folder on the hard drive (not the one on the CD). Drag the files System and Finder out onto the desktop. Close the System Folder. Drop those two files back into the closed System Folder on the hard drive.
• The System Folder on the hard drive has become damaged in some way, to the point it is no longer capable of booting the Mac.
• There is no valid System Folder on the hard drive.
The solution for the last two is the same - re-install the OS. You can do that while booted to the OS Install CD. Run the program Mac OS Install, and follow the prompts to do a normal (generic) install of the OS.
If there is a System Folder already on the hard drive, and it is necessary to re-install the OS, it would be wise to do a Clean Install of it. Note that a Clean Install removes nothing - it will install a brand new, 'clean' System Folder, rename the old one to Previous System Folder, and little else.
Article #58176 - Mac OS 8, Mac OS 9: Performing a Clean Installation

HELP! CD player suddenly won't boot any startup disk.

Help! I am being swamped with problems stemming from my attempt to upgrade to OS X. Can anyone help me plug the holes in my boat? I am including as much info as I can because I notice that requests like mine often generate a lot of questions about basic things. So, here it goes ... and thanks for your thoughts, Ed T. in Newburyport, MA. OK to send ideas to me [email protected]
Goal: install OX 10.3.5 (Panther) on my Mac G4 Ethernet Gigabit machine by booting from the CD install disk. I am using a full retail version (black with silver “X” v 10.3.5).
Problem: neither internal CD-Rom not external Fire Wire CD-ROM player/recorder will boot from 9.1 or 9.2 startup disks. These disks (DiskWarrior and Apple OS X insdatll disk #1) booted OK until I made upgrade preparations to get G4 and OS 9.2.2.
About two weeks ago I installed ViaVoice v2.01 Enhanced Edition and did a practice reading. I just mention this in case it might be relevant.
After installing the second HD I moved all of the document files off the original HD to the new one. I left all the applications on the original HD. I ran DiskWarrior and rebuilt the desktop for each drive. I check for fragmentation and optimized the disks which ran smoothly.
Hardware: G4 Ethernet Gigabit CPU (purchased new 2001 with RAM upgraded to 256 Mb and with an internal CD-ROM player) which uses the original processor, Que Fire external CD recorder/player connected via Firewire, Airport card upgrade and white domed Airport Hub, older HP 55M laser printer connected with an Assante Bridge unit, a cable internet box (Motorola) connected to the Airport unit. Monitor (an older SONY Multiscan 100ES purchased at SeaMUG swap meet). USB 4 jack hub (Netgear Dual Speed DS104). New external hard drive (an OWC Mercury Ultra AL 250 Gb USB/Fire Wire) connected via Fire Wire cable.
Upgrade preparations - I added some new items:
1.) I increased the original 256 RAM by installing (adding) two 512 cards from Other World Computing (OWC at MacSales.com), and ...
2.) a new ATA internal 80 Gb Hitachi hard drive (also from OWC) fitted onto the “sled” atop the original 40 Gb HD. NOTE: both drives are format extended (HFS+).
Next, I backed up original 40 Gb hard drive to my new OWC Mercury 250 Gb external HD using Retrospect.
Software: I did the following activities according upgrade decision lists from MacFixit and Apple Support Discussion Group. I did the following:
1.) Updated OS 9.2.2 firmware to v4.2.8 which I downloaded from Apple,
NOTE: this procedure involved holding in the programmer’s button (the little recessed one below the big startup button and to the right of the little reboot button) and then pressing the startup button until I heard a long tone. I released the programmer’s button and the firmware update completed successfully.
2.) I did not check for external Hard Drive firmware updates because drive is one month old, but I did disconnect the Firewire cable during the following activities,
3.) I have no “haxies” to update,
4.) There was no Stuffit Deluxe software to de-activate,
5.) Removed extra start up items (ViaVoice).
6.) Disconnected all non-Apple USB hub hardware.
6.) Booted from OS X install disk ( in the internal player) and ...
7.) used Disk Utility to check/repair both hard drives.
Here is where the PROBLEMS STARTED.
8.) I intended to boot from the DiskWarrior CD in order to run its tests on both HD’s. The DISK WOULD NOT BOOT. Instead, the screen went gray and I had to eject the disk and use the restart button.
9.) Next I tried to boot from the OS X Install CD as I did before. The screen went gray, a large gray Apple logo appeared followed by a white print on BLACK KERNEL PANIC screen.
10.) Each of the CD’s seems to mount OK and I can access and use the utilities BUT I CANNOT USE THEM AS A START UP DISK ANYMORE. I have tried the “press the C key” method and the Start up Disk control panel designation method without success.
What is the best way to get back the use of the “C” key in order to boot from the CD. And, since I have two drives, could I use one as the assigned start up in system 9.2.2, and used the OS X Install disk to get the OS X onto the other disk.
My efforts to solve this problem have only made matters worse. My new HD won’t mount and can’t be repaired by Tech Tool Pro 2.5. I may have to use the file recovery feature to retrieve what files I can and then re-initialize it. The original HD is also reporting damage but so far it will start up. All the applications are on it, it is the startup disk so I cannot effectively use my tools to work on it.
Please help me to get back to dry land and install OS 10.3.5. Many thanks in advance.

Hello! First, you know now that you should never do multiple upgrades at the same time. That said I'd first look at the most likely which is an error in the hard drives. Often cable select won't work. Make sure the drive jumpered master is on the end of the ribbon away from the motherboard and the one jumpered slave is on the middle connector. New drives are usually jumpered either master or cable select and if you installed it as a slave without proper jumpering then that's the most likely place to start. Post back when you're sure the drives are physically connected properly. Tom

My MacBook Air keeps alerting that the startup disk is full and I've deleted applications, iTunes and MobileSync backups. What else??

I don't consider myself an advanced Mac user but I'm really trying to use my Macbook Air much more than I do... but the biggest hurdle for me is that it's been alerting me that the startup disk has been full for several months now no matter what I do. I'm on 10.9.1 OSX and can't even update to the newer version because I'm always out of space. I have 4GIGs of memory and a 60GB SSD of which 52GB are in use. Using OmniDisk Sweeper, I see I have 14.6 GB in Library of which 8.1 GB is Mail and 5GB is Application Support (and I have nearly 480 MB in Caches and 191 in Containers, 131MB in Messages). As for the rest, I've deleted my iTunes content multiple times but my iTunes library STILL says 1.7GBs in Music. I also have 672MB in Movies which I moved to an external drive and trashed so I'm not sure what still exists here. I only have 2 movie files and I deleted them both! I also have 16.9 MB in hob, whatever that is.
I have 32.8 MB in Logs, 19.8 in Safari, 7.9 MB in Calendars, 5.6MB in Google, 4.3MB in Preferences (!!), and 1.6MB in GameKit (not sure what this is), 1.1MB in KeyChains.
I'm just not sure what's going on. I have everything backed up via SuperDuper on a huge external drive and when I delete on my Mac, it doesn't seem to "take." Is is syncing that's the problem? Are my iTunes music files from my iPhone reinstalling back on the Mac as are all my photos and movies? I don't have that checked in iTunes so that shouldn't be happening either.
Again, I'm not an advanced user so maybe I'm not completing a final step to make sure it doesn't sync with my other devices (I also have an iPad mini). I like to get messages on my Macbook Air when I'm not near my phone but if it means I have 131MB in Messages that I can't pare down, I'd rather not. I see no way to reduce the Messages file so that it's not so large. I definitely want to get a handle on this before I even consider upgrading to a Macbook with more RAM and a bigger hard drive.
Final thoughts: Should I delete my mail accounts and just check mail on the web? Can I delete most of the files in Application Support or leave them alone? What's the difference between the MobileSync files and the MSYNC files?
Thanks in advance for help!

Go step by step and test.
1. Start up in Safe Mode.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/PH11212
2. Empty Trash.
   http://support.apple.com/kb/PH13806
3. Disk space / Time Machine ?/ Local Snapshots
Local backups
   http://support.apple.com/kb/ht4878
4. Delete old iOS Devices Backup.
    iTunes > Preferences > Devices
    Highlight the old Backups , press “Delete Backup” and then “OK”.
    http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4946?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
5. Re-index Macintosh HD.
    This will take a while. Wait until it is finished.
    System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy
    http://support.apple.com/kb/ht2409

"Startup Disk is Full" even though I have 3.5 GB free

I just upgraded my RAM from 2 GB to 4 GB yesterday (2 x 2GB Kingston DDR2), and today I'm getting a message that my "startup disk is full," even though I have 3.5 GB of space on my hard drive.
I've gotten this message in the past when I only have 100 or 50 MB left on my hard drive, but 3.5 GB of space seems like a lot of room to be getting the "startup disk is full" error.
I know I'm supposed to have 10% of my hard drive free for optimal usage, but I'm wondering whether this error message is an indication that the RAM isn't working the way it's supposed to.
Also, the other thing I noticed acting funny since the RAM got installed was shutdown problems. Today I had to hold down the power button to shut down, since doing it via the finder window was not working.
Thanks in advance for any ideas and tips!
Mark

Hi Markus,
The sleepimage file is from Safe Sleep. This saves the contents of RAM to the HD each time Mac is put to sleep in case of a "mishap" so that data would be saved. As you've discovered, it can take up a bit of HD space (as much RAM as you have installed). Thus, I've disabled Safe Sleep and trashed that file. Sleep is now faster too. If you care to do this, here are my directions:
Safe Sleep: How to Disable
Safe sleep copies the content of RAM onto the HD prior to sleep, so it can cause very slow go-to-sleep performance (slow), and sometimes additional issues.
To disable Safe Sleep:
Open Terminal.
Copy and paste in the following two commands:
sudo pmset -a hibernatemode 0  
sudo nvram "use-nvramrc?"=false  
Hit return.
When Terminal is finished doing its thing, type in
Exit
hit return, and quit Terminal.
If you do decide to disable Safe Sleep, there’s also a file you can get rid of to save some space on your HD (this file can be as large as the amount of RAM you have installed, probably 2-4GB for the average Mac).
From the Finder (just click once anywhere on a bare Desktop area to make the correct menu bar appear).
Click on the Go menu and select Go to Folder.
Copy and paste or enter the following in the “Go to the Folder:” field.
/var/vm
Trash the file named “sleepimage.” (Do NOT trash the file named “swapfiles.”)
Close the windows, empty the trash, and you should have faster sleeping and a bit more free HD space.

I'm trying to up grade the os but I keep getting the startup disk is full I ordered more memory I was told this will not help. What do I do?

I'm trying to up grade the os but I keep getting the startup disk is full I ordered more memory I was told this will not help. What do I do?

I think as drive capacities increase, the old 10-15% becomes less accurate. The amount of free space you need doesn't really have anything to do with the drive size. So, increasing your drive size shouldn't mean that you need to have more free GB (which using a % of drive space would mean). You need free space to accommodate page outs (the amount of which would depend on how much RAM you have installed and how memory intensive the applications are), sleep images (again, this would max out at your total amount of RAM), and a bit to minimize fragmentation.
With desktop drives commonly in the 2TB range today, it is certainly not necessary to have 200GB+ free in order to maintain proper operation. I generally find about 30GB to be the minimum I'm comfortable with. Mind you, I pretty much always have way more than that available. But, if I'm working on a system and the amount of free space is at least 30GB, I would generally not site drive space as the cause of any performance issues. I'd say that 30GB is a minimum for a stable system (with 8GB or RAM installed). Of course at that amount, you would still need to free up space if you were to want to install or download any significant amount of data.
With servers being more likely to run into the 16GB of RAM range, more storage would be necessary. Most servers should be well stocked with storage, but the actual needs would vary greatly depending on what's being "served".
The 10-15% thing came about when we used to talk about drive capacities in hundreds of MBs and RAM in terms of KB (not MB and certainly not GB). More drive space is always a good thing, but as drive capacities continue to sky rocket, we don't need to dedicate larger amounts of storage on systems with the same specifications. A set amount of space is required for proper operation regardless of the capacity of the drive installed.

Mac startup disk memory problems

Hello Apple Community.. I have a trouble starting up my mac and I thought entering startup disk mode would solve my problems.. There are two disks named Untitled, placed the one under the other. The first one says that I have 19 MB (!!!) available and the second one 388 GB.. What have I done?

Thanks for your immediate response!
This is how my disks appear.. Is it normal? I had my disk changed on Monday, but still the same numbers..
Did I do something wrong?
I'm using a MacBook Pro from mid 2012 with a 2,5 GHz i5 Processor and 4GB RAM
Thanks a lot!

Startup Disk full error message but free space shows 87GB

Hi I have looked through these forums as much as I could but can't find the answer to this. I was working in photoshop CS6 and received the message that my startup disk was almost full. I had just cleared files the day previous and had 87GB of free space. So I restarted after emptying trash etc and tried to get back into photoshop but had the same message, checked my free space and it said 2gb. So I began my search here and saw the issue with .OfflineCache in mail but was never able to locate that file on my computer and after trying several things and failing I checked the info on my Mac hd drive again and it was back to 87gb yet message still coming. I have 8 Gigs of Ram, a 321 Gb hard Drive and running a Mackbook pro 13" with Mac osx Lion 10.7.5. Mid 2010.
Please Help!!

Hi,
I would try using GrandPerspective (http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net) to try find out where all the space is being taken up.
Chris

"startup disk full" error message

So, I get this error message saying "your startup disk is full: you need to make disk space available by deleting files" (or something along those lines). I went through my files, saved about 10 gigs of stuff to my external HD, then deleted it from my mac HD.
I keep getting this message, even after clearing up several gigs of space. When I boot up my computer, I have about 448mb of space on my HD, but it seems to disappear within a few minutes, even without any activity on my part.
Thanks.
-Erik

A Unix-based OS such as OS X requires hard drive space for log and cache files; this can take anywhere from 64MB to 2GB depending on how much RAM you have, how long since the cron maintenance tasks last ran, whether anyting is causing large write operations to the various logs, and so on. As a rule of thumb, you don't want an OS X Mac to drop below about 5GB free space, minimum; a oft-cited ballpark of keeping 10 to 15% of the hard drive free allows for user-created data and allows some safety margin.
If a Unix computer fully runs out of space, the computer can fail to start normally. You'd then face starting in single-user mode (hold the command and s keys down at startup), which puts you in a Unix command line interface. It's possible to use Unix commands to navigate around and search for unnecessary files to delete, but doing so if definitely non-trivial.
While written for Tiger, Francine: A Miscellany of Mystifying Tiger Problems has some useful tips you can try.
If you moved several GB to the Trash and tried to empty the Trash while the Mac's hard drive was nearly full, that effort may have unintentionally corrupted the disk directory. Boot from your OS X Install disc to launch Disk Utility from the Installer menu, and run Repair Disk on the hard drive (see Using Disk Utility and fsck). If repairs are reported, repeat Repair Disk until no problems are found. If DU is unable to repair the drive, DiskWarrior can often make directory repairs that DU cannot.

Startup disk memory full

I am getting a message saying that my startup disk is almost full so the file I'm trying to save cannot be saved.
The weird thing is that I am trying to save a 2MB file and I have still 94GB of free space in my startup disk!!!
Does anyone know what could be happening here?
Thanks,
Cantautor

Scan your drive with WhatSize once and see if you can see what's eating up your disk space.
http://www.id-design.com/Software/WhatSize/
Pay attention to these files:
/private/var/vm
/private/var/log
/Volumes
The /private/var/vm directory contains the swapfiles used by virutal memory. New ones are made as more data is swapped from RAM to the hard drive. The entire process of creating them begins at each reboot or restart. Check the total size of all the swapfiles, right after you boot, and as the disk fills up. Swapfiles are used by virtual memory. The first two are 64MB, then each new one is twice the size of the preceeding one (128MB, 256MB, 512MB...).
If you do not run the daily, weekly, and monthly maintenance routines (either by using a utility, or by running the commands sudo perioidic daily, sudo perioidc weekly, and sudo periodic monthly in Terminal), you will accumulate too many logs. If an error is occurring frequently and is being logged, you can have a very large file at /private/var/log/system.log. I recently saw mention of a system.log file that was larger than 40 GB.
-Bmer
Mac Owners Support Group
Join Us @ MacOSG.com
IiTunes: MacOSG Podcast
 An Apple User Group 
Note: I receive no compensation for product endorsements.

Startup Disk Memory Inexplicably Low/Missing

I normally keep a close eye on the amount of info going into my partitioned Mac HD (presently: capacity 29.88 GB, 27.64 Used, 2.23 Available), but I received a message today to the effect that "your startup disk is low in available memory..." while only running Safari... The last time I had checked (about 1 month ago) I had between 9 and 10 GB of available space, so needless to say I was rather surprised to get this message. I immediately did a "Get Info" on the drive and was SHOCKED for TWO reasons! 1) that the available memory was so low... but ALSO as I checked and RE-checked the memory was DISAPPEARING before my eyes! I was only running Safari (although a couple hours prior I had worked on and saved a 5+ page site in iWeb with a fair amount of imagery... I have 1 GB of RAM. I restarted and the drive has since stabalized at 2.22-2.23 GB Available. I restarted in Safe Mode and restarted again and ran a repair permissions on it. All seems to be ok for now BUT I haven't reopened iWeb for fear that that may be eating up what little memory is left AND then there is this OTHER issue of where these other 8 or so GB have gone to???? When I calculate Finder items in the HD they total 19.5 GB not the 27.64 that "Get Info" pulls up for it. One more note: I installed iLife '06 about a month ago... What is happening here?
PowerBook G4 17" Mac OS X (10.4.5)

Hi, O.
1. IMO, with only 2-3 GB of available (free) space, you're critically short of free disk space. Cache files and virtual memory swap files could readily and quickly consume that. See my "Problems from insufficient RAM and free hard disk space" FAQ.
2. A runaway process constantly writing to log files can chew up disk space. Check these Console logs for clues, specifically large blocks of repeating messages that recur at high-frequency. If you find such blocks, post some samples for diagnosis. Again, do not post the entire log or logs, just copy/paste samples of blocks of repeating messages that recur at high frequency.
Common causes of runaway processes writing to logs include software associated with Canon and HP scanners, software for HP All-In-One devices, and Adobe Acrobat version 7.x prior to version 7.0.5. Depending on the messages you post, I can give you specific actions to take if one of those apply.
3. See also my "Freeing Space on your Mac OS X startup disk" FAQ.
Good luck!
Dr. Smoke
Author: Troubleshooting Mac® OS X
Note: The information provided in the link(s) above is freely available. However, because I own The X Lab™, a commercial Web site to which some of these links point, the Apple Discussions Terms of Use require I include the following disclosure statement with this post:
I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

"No enought room on startup disk for Application Memory" when using the Accelerate Framework

Dear colleagues,
I am running what I know is a large problem for a scientific application (tochnog) a finite element solver that runs from the Terminal. The application tries to solve 1,320,000 simultaneous linear equations. The problem starts when I use the Accelerate Framework as the Virtual Memory size jumps from 142 G to about 576 G after the library (LAPACK) is called to solve the system.It does not do it if I use a solver that does not calls LAPACK inside Accelerate.
The machine is a mac pro desktop with 8 GB of ram, the 2.66 GHz Quad-core Intel and the standard 640 GB hard drive. The system tells me that I have 487 GB available on hard drive.
The top instruction in Terminal reads VM 129G vsize when starting. When I run the finite element application once the LAPACK library in the Accelerate framework gets called, the Virtual Memory (VM) jumps to 563 G vsize.
After a short while, I get the "No enought room on startup disk for Application Memory error"
This is a screen capture of the application attempting to solve the problem using the LAPACK library inside the Accelerate framework: Here are the numbers as reported by the activity Monitor.
Tochnog Real Memory 6.68 GB
System Memory Free: 33.8 MB, Wired 378.8 MB, Active 5.06 GB, Inactive 2.53 GB, Used 7.96 GB.
VM size 567.52 GB, Page ins 270.8 MB, Page outs 108.2 MB, Swap used 505 MB
This is a screen copy of the same application solving the same problemwithout using the Accelerate framework.
Tochnog Real Memory 1.96 GB,
System Memory Free: 4.52 MB, Wired 382.1 MB, Active 2.69 GB, Inactive 416.2 GB, Used 3.47 GB.
VM size 148.60 GB, Page ins 288.8 MB, Page outs 108.2 MB, Swap used 2.5 MB
I can not understand the disparity in the behavior for the same case. As I said before, the only difference is the use of Accelerate in the first case. Also, as you can see, I thought that 8 GB of ram memory was a lot.
Your help will be greatly appreciated
Best regards,
F Lorenzo

The OP had posted this question in the iMac Intel forum.
I replied along similar lines, but suggested he repost this in the SL forum where I know there are usually several people who have a far better grasp of these issues than I.
I would be interested in getting their take on this.
Although, I think you are coming to the correct conclusion that there are not enough resources available for this process, I'm not certain that what you are saying on the way to that conclusion is correct. My understanding of VM is that it is the total theoretical demand on memory a process might make. It is not necessarily the actual or real world demand being made.
As such, this process is not actually demanding 568GB (rounded.) As evidence of that, you can see there is still memory available, albeit quite small, in the form of free memory of 33.8MB and inactive of 2.53GB (the GB for that figure, above, seems like it might be a typo, since for the process when not using Accelerate the reported figure for inactive was 416.2 GB -- surely impossible) and 7.96GB used. The process, itself, is using 6.68GB real memory.
In addition, I question whether the OP has misstated the 487GB free drive space. I think that might be the total drive capacity, not the free space.
My guess is that it is the combination of low available memory and low free drive space prompting this error.
From Dr. Smoke on VM:
it is possible that swap files could grow to the point where all free space on your disk is consumed by them. This can happen if you are very low on both RAM and free disk space.
https://discussions.apple.com/message/2232469?messageID=2232469&#2232469
This gets more to the actual intent of your question...
EDIT: Looks like some kind of glitch right now getting to the Dr. Smoke post.
Message was edited by: WZZZ
<Hyperlink Edited by Host>

Startup Disk & RAM

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for