Vanishing disk space

Hi.
I have around ~28 gigs of free space on my 10.6.4 server system drive.
I am forced to reboot the box daily, as all the freespace on the system drive vanishes. A reboot recovers all the freespace everytime.
I recently turned on Wiki services and iCal; i thought perhaps a rogue logfile was eating up my space, but have since shutoff said services to no effect.
Any suggestions?
Im about the re-install the 10.6.4 combo update.
I've tried the tips in this thread
http://discussions.info.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=11601806&#11601806
striper:~ admin$ sudo du -shcx /*
s5.4G /Applications
1.3G /Developer
0B /Groups
3.6G /Library
1.0K /Network
0B /Shared Items
2.5G /System
44G /Users
4.0K /Volumes
3.9M /bin
0B /cores
du: Can't follow symlink cycle from /dev/fd/3 to /dev/fd/3
Open directory replica and AFP are the only services currently running on this machine.

I mean, I'll leave server admin open on this machine all day, sure.
But I logout when I leave.
I administer two 4 xserves at this office; my workstation is this MacPro running 10.6.4 Server, which is running as the OD replica. So I do all of my admin duties from this machine.
I also use it as a Software Update, Netboot and internal WebServer.. But like I said, i've turned off those services in an attempt to troubleshoot this vanishing space issue.
Even if Server Admin were open all day, that still wouldn't explain why my machine loses 10 gigs in 8 hours.
I just re-applied the 10.6.4 combo update and rebooted.
I'm back up to 28.6 gb free.
Post re-apply/reboot du -chxd 1 / results below...
904K /.fseventsd
0B /.gem
364M /.Spotlight-V100
0B /.Trashes
0B /.vol
5.4G /Applications
3.9M /bin
0B /cores
4.5K /dev
1.3G /Developer
0B /Groups
1.0K /home
3.0G /Library
1.0K /net
1.0K /Network
169M /opt
37G /private
2.7M /sbin
0B /Shared Items
2.5G /System
43G /Users
1.0G /usr
4.0K /Volumes
94G /
94G total

Similar Messages

Vanishing disk space 10.6.3 Server

I have Snow Leopard Server installed on a mac mini (dual hard drives). It is configured with two partitions, one for the Operating System and one for Time Machine backups for the 7 Macs in the office.
I keep losing free space on the OS partition (Time Machine is not backing up to this drive). I know the first culprit is usually a runaway log file. However, I simply cannot find a huge log file.
The math on the drive simply does not add up. I show that I am using less than 20GB on that partition but it is reporting that I am using 50GB! I should have 50GB free!
Now when I restart I reclaim all the space and it is fine. Over the course of a day I can sit there and watch my free space tick away again.
One time it got so bad that I got the dreaded low disk space warning. It got down to zero free, but then bumped back to 900MB free and this repeated.
Here is a picture to hopefully help.
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/7294/screenshot20100528at342.png
Any Ideas?

I tried whatsize, Grandperspective ets. The programs are just not seeing the files.
I even ran Grandperspective through sudo in the terminal and while it showed other users files now, still did not show 45GB of Miscellaneous files."
These misc space is:
*Miscellaneous used space:* All used space that is not accounted for by the size of the scanned files. This includes the following:
Files that were not scanned, either because the scanned folder was not at the root of the volume, or the user did not have permissions to access all subfolders.
Files that are excluded by the filter (if any).
Disk space that is not accounted for because the Logical file size measure is used, which underestimates the space that files actually take up.
Low-level file system data, needed to store amongst others the folder hierarchy.
I am going to try a repair booting from the install disc to see if there is any corruption or something once I can kick the other users off for the day.

Vanishing disk space - right before my eyes!

I've just seen something I've never seen before. I've just been resizing some jpegs, and creating small thumbnails using Adobe Fireworks.
And I just happened to notice that available disk space had gone down from around 90GB to around 40GB. No idea what happened, but alarmingly it was continuing to reduce all by itself right in front of my eyes without me even doing anything.
I've just rebooted the machine and Finder is reporting about 50GB less than I'd expect, but has at least stopped reducing.
Any ideas what caused this (I certainly wasn't creating gigs and gigs of images)?
And how can I figure out what's taking up that 50GB or so and get rid of it?
Update - I've run OmniDiskSweeper, and found the following suspicious looking log files :
26.7GB - kernel.log.0
8.3GB - asl
6.7GB - kernel.log
And a few smaller kernel files -
11.7MB - kernel.log.1.bz2
6.9MB - kernel.log.2.bz2
3.5MB - kernel.log.0.bz2
Does that lot sound the guilty party?
If so, how do I delete it?
I can't see the Private folder in the Finder...
Strangely, having left the machine asleep overnight, the Finder is now reporting 51GB free when it was only reporting 42GB free when I left it asleep last night....
I've just swept again, and the above logs have now changed to :
26.7GB - kernel.log.0
6.7GB - kernel.log.0
140.4MB - asl
And a few smaller kernel files -
17.9MB - kernel.log.bz2
11.7MB - kernel.log.2.bz2
6.9MB - kernel.log.3.bz2
Any advice on what's safe to delete (presumably directly in OmniDiskSweeper, as I can't see that Private folder in the Finder) would be much appreciated.
Message was edited by: Iain MacDonald1

HI,
That doesn't sound good.
*"26.7GB - kernel.log.0"*
Not sure... try some maintenance.
Boot from your install disk and run Disk Utility to check for errors.
Insert Installer disk and Restart, holding down the "C" key until grey Apple appears.
Go to Installer menu (Panther and earlier) or Utilities menu (Tiger and later) and launch Disk Utility.
Select your HDD (manufacturer ID) in the left panel.
Select First Aid in the Main panel.
*(Check S.M.A.R.T Status of HDD at the bottom of right panel. It should say: Verified)*
Click Repair Disk on the bottom right.
If DU reports disk does not need repairs quit DU and restart.
If DU reports errors Repair again and again until DU reports disk is repaired.
When you are finished with DU, from the Menu Bar, select Utilities/Startup Manager.
Select your start up disk and click Restart
Check available disk space.
Control or right click the MacintoshHD icon on your Desktop. Click "Get Info". Under the General tab you will see Capacity and Available. *Make sure there is at least 10% available disk space, 15% is better.*
If you cannot boot from your install disk, try booting in Safe Mode
What is Safe Mode
Carolyn

Help-Erasing a Boot Camp Partition Caused 32 GB of Disk Space to Vanish

Hi
I'm a new mac user I'd I have been really happy so far, expect for this problem:
-I created a 32 gb partition with boot camp.
-I tried installing windows xp without knowing I had to format the system to NTFS during the install
The installation didnt work, and I erased the bootcamp partition.
-When I tried to create a new boot camp partition, it said my Mac HD size hard drive is 227 gb, ie the *32 gb allocated to the partition had vanished*. In addition, I could not recreate a partition because of an error message.
-I ran the snow leopard CD's disk utility and thought that I had fixed the problem.
-However in boot camp, the mac drive is still only 227 gb (missing 32 gb). I can create partitions now, and deleting these partitions does cause any additional loss of disk space.
-I tried erasing empty disk space with no luck.
Does anyone know how to recover space lost by Boot Camp?
Thanks

qcpharaoh wrote:
-When I tried to create a new boot camp partition, it said my Mac HD size hard drive is 227 gb, ie the *32 gb allocated to the partition had vanished*. In addition, I could not recreate a partition because of an error message.
-I ran the snow leopard CD's disk utility and thought that I had fixed the problem.
-However in boot camp, the mac drive is still only 227 gb (missing 32 gb). I can create partitions now, and deleting these partitions does cause any additional loss of disk space.
Let me ask a simple question. What size HD do you have in your Mac? You say you see 227 GB and that 32GB is "missing". If I add those two numbers up I com up with 259 GB. I suspect that your "missing" space is due to the inconsistencies in which Snow Leopard now reports 1 GB. In some places it reports 1 GB as a hard disk manufacturer (1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes). In other places it reports 1 GB as a binary number (1 GB = 2^^30 [IIRC] = 1,073,741,824 Bytes). Since I do not know of any drive manufacturer that sells a 259 GB drive, I suspect that this is just due to the differing definitions of 1 GB.

20gb of Disk Space Vanishes? On it's own?

Hi guys, I'm a long time mac user and have never seen anything like this.
I run a 2.53gz MBP 5,1. with 4gb of ram and 320gb HD. I have the drive partitioned with a 60gb NTFS bootcamp partition for WindowsXP that I use with Parallels 4. I use Time Machine to backup to a 2tb WD drive.
So, I've been running the machine all day long with approximately 24.5gb of disk space. I left my desk around 6:00 today and I just came back to find a low disk space error and saw that I only had 1.8gb left, and watched it drip down to 1.5, 1.3 and 1.1gb right in front of my eyes without doing anything at all! I rebooted and now the computer has been sitting steady at 5.7gb. I looked through my timemachine archive to earlier in the day and the last update was right after I left (with 24.5gb of disk space left) the next update is inexplicably at 1.7gb. I did get info on all the main folders in my root directory (Applications, Library, System & Users) and the identical folders now and there is almost no difference whatsoever in folder size! Yet, when you look at the bottom of the window in the time machine reference from a few hours earlier it says 24.5gb available, and then go back to the "now" window it says 5.7gb available...
I'm totally baffled. approximately 19gb of disk space just completely vanished and I can't account for the change or the increase in used disk space anywhere.
The only recent update was the Security Update 2010-001 that was issued on the 19th.
I have tried to restart. Reset the PRAM. Checked the SMART status using Disk Utility. Everything checks out.
The only thing I could possibly point to is an issue with Bootcamp and the NTFS drive. However I was not running bootcamp or parallels when this happened.
Time Machine was stuck at "Calculating Changes... (15%)" when I came back and the Time Machine drive is nearly full...but I don't think this should matter.
Also Time Machine hasn't completed a full backup since the drive was at it's original 24.5gb. I'm wondering if it got stuck when doing a backup and somehow is confused between what is backed up and what isn't and there is disk space being "held" somewhere by time machine somehow.
Any suggestions on what happened to the mystery 19gb?
Message was edited by: gabeotron

The two swap files sound OK, you will always have at least one of approximately 60MBs. The sleepimage is also normal: it will be about the size of the RAM you have, and contains the content of your actual RAM. The point being that if you put your computer into hibernate, or for a laptop the battery runs out of juice, when the machine is again brought back into action it can resume from where it was when things were stopped. So that is normal.
It sounds like perhaps a run-away log file could be responsible. You might take a look in
/private/var/log
Arrange by size and see what you've got. My biggest one is the folder for DiagnosticMessages, at 5MBs. Everything else is in the KB range.
If that doesn't turn up the culprit you can use the Terminal commands.
Francine
Francine
Schwieder

ITunes Library.itl file vanished, my solution cost me 20GB of disk space

I have a G4 PowerBook running OSX 10.5.8 with iTunes 10.6.3. Yesterday when I opened iTunes it said it needed to create an iTunes Library.itl file. When it was done most of my music and playlists did not show in iTunes. I restored a day-old iTunes folder, with the .itl file, from my time machine backup and everything worked. But, where I previously had 89GB available on my drive I now have only 68GB available. I have no idea where the extra 20GB is. I did a complete erase and restore and all is fine but I still have only 68GB available. The Time Machine backup was from before the errors and it shows 89GB available. Can anyone point me to where I might have lost 21GB of disk space?
Thank you,

I originally got the same error as shown at the start of this thread:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/5253249#5253249

150 Gbs of Disk Space Vanished

Hello Everyone!
     Recently I have been EXTREMLEY frustrated with my computer. I was recently trying to free up some space on my mac, and I found out I have already taken up 300 Gbs of harddrive space out of 500 Gbs. So I did some poking around, and 250 Gbs were taken up on my personal profile. My Documents only have about 11 Gbs in it, I have 60 Gbs of Photos and Videos, and the rest in other places. But looking at each folder in my personal profile only brought up 100 Gbs total. There is 150 Gbs that just are not there.
     I do a ton of visual effects and Photoshop work, so I would like all the space I can get. On top of that I wanted to install a windows partition for gaming purposes, but my disk space just seems to be flying away. I am normally a tech savy guy, and I have no idea what to do. There is literally nothing I can think of doing that will somehow get all my disk space back.
               Please, if anyone knows how to fix this, please help me as soon as you can!
                    Thanks!
                              Evan Groover

Well thank you Allan!
It seems most of it was allocated to my Steam folder, which makes sense! Since I am moving my video games over to my PC side, I guess I can delete those... Still searching for more, but that took up 80 Gbs. I have a feeling I will find useless stuff somewhere else.
Evan

Disk space vanished

Hello out there!
I was just "cleaning out" my mac to get some free disk space when I noticed something odd: all my folders sum up to a total of about 52GB, but when I get the info for my hard drive, it tells me i have 85GB of used disk space! That is a **** of a lot of memory missing. I tried to delete cache, but no visible result... What is going on here?

This should help:
Link
Note that since there are currently no (zero) viruses that affect Mac OS X, it may be a waste of time for you to run NAV at all. And if you do want to keep using NAV, updating to the latest version would certainly be preferable to suffering the spacesuckingfile.XXXXX bug again.

Disk space vanishing, other strange behavior

In the last two days TechTool has been announcing that my free disk space is getting low. Started at 15%, but it keeps dropping down to 1%. I've deleted about 100GB of data in the last two days, but it isn't helping.
Checked my log files which aren't ridculously big. None of my processes are using a fraction of the 160GB+ it shows as being allocated to VM. Some strange log entries in console related to MacHelper, but I don't think I ever installed it. Ran an uninstaller just in case.
Prior to this happening some other odd things have been happening for a week or so:
External drives aren't dismounting correctly. Click eject and the name remains grayed out and if I unplug the drive I get chided for removing a drive.
System hangs and requires forced restart. Hangs during restart on the desktop image.
Had some trouble with an external e-sata drive dismounting all the time using the card slot adaptor for e-Sata. Card would get extremely hot. Used FW800 but had strange behavior with 5 additional drives reminiscent of SCSI. Once I changed the cables around it stopped doing this.

You may not have gotten all of MacKeeper. From an earlier post of mine:
I'd search for it using EasyFind. Enter "MacKeeper" and "Zeobit." Set EF to scan all files and folders, invisible, case insensitive, package contents. Search using boolean and phrase. It will probably do a more thorough job than Spotlight. If you can't "Destroy" from EF, use Reveal in Finder to trash and authenticate from there.
It is also known to install a Windows emulator called "wine;" search for that.
Also, look in the Keychain for anything MacKeeper or zeobit related, and for its cookies in your browser. When finished, empty the Trash and restart.
http://www.devon-technologies.com/download/index.html
Somehow, as BDAqua suggested, I'm still suspecting it's the logs filling up with a constantly repeating message. Are there any other Users? Can you log in to those and see what's going on with those logs?
Permissons repair has nothing to do with this.
Get OmniDisk Sweeper. Run it logged in to all your users.
http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/

I deleted unwanted photos from my iPhoto library, emptied iPhoto trash & Finder trash... this did not free up disk space. please help!

I deleted unwanted photos from my iPhoto library, emptied iPhoto trash & Finder trash... this did not free up disk space. please help!
I have a 15-inch MacBook Pro (Late 2011) with OS X Mavericks 10.9.5
Last week, my 500 GB Harddrive had 120 GB free space. I was feeling crumby and decided to make productive use of taking a day off to lounge around. I snuggled up with my laptop and dedicated hours to meticulously combing through my iPhoto Library. I had 13,000 pictures, and I got rid of those I didn't want. Having said "sayōnara" to about 6,500 pictures, I then emptied the iPhoto trash and the Finder trash. I took delight in the iconic paper crumpling sound of them vanishing into the digital void.
Everything seemed perfect: the photos I loved were still there, the photos I loathed were gone, both trashes were beautifully empty. Having thrown away all of those awful, boring, and unflattering images of poorly light lunches and selfies gone wrong, my iPhoto library was half the size as before! I felt renewed, a little lighter, somehow more free, and I expected my hard drive to be a bit different to.
I eagerly checked my storage stats. My heart sank to see that my 120 GB of free space, was still only 120 GB of free space. I restarted my MacBook; this did not help. I restarted it the next day; this also did not help. It's been 5 days and the hard drive still has 120 GB free space. This is not an emergency and it will probably be a good while before I clutter my laptop to the brim. Yet while I am glad I don't have to see cringeworthy pictures of my ex's unmentionables every time I'm showing off things I do want to remember, I'm still disappointed and now obsessed with solving this mystery.
What is going on? I don't see them, so where are they hiding? How do I get the free space I should have earned from throwing away 1,000's of photos?!

Thank you, Terence!
Yes, I only emptied the trash when it was really full, once I waited until the trash cans contained 2,600 photos and then I emptied them - Oooops! In the future, I'll keep in mind your suggestion of deleting less than 100 photos at a time.
I downloaded the iPhoto Library Manager and used it to rebuild my iPhoto. After a few hours of rebuilding, it generated a new copy of my iPhoto Library. This versions was nearly identical to the original (it was missing 5 photos and was therefore only 5 mb smaller). I guess my Library wasn't defective.
I checked my storage stats, and interestingly, using iPhoto Library Manager did help with the problem that developed after I re-indexed my hard drive. My hard drive is able to properly recognize data categories again, instead of listing almost everything as "Other". Understandably, my free disk space changed from 120 GB to about 60 GB, because my hard drive now contained a second copy of my iPhoto Library as well as iPhoto Library Manager. It seemed like all I needed to do was throw these away, but when I emptied the trash, my problem was not solved. My Hard drive now looked like this:
It appears to me that when I empty the trash, the things I throw away are just hanging around as backups instead of leaving! I went into System Preferences and turned of my time machine OFF. Now my hard drive looks likes this:
The back ups of the iPhoto files, and the program which I deleted, are still on my hard drive some where but now they are listed as "Other" instead of "Backups". Do you know where they might be and how I can delete them for good?

Lost disk space after Avast anti-virus scan

I used the free Avast anti-virus software to scan my MacBook Air running Mavericks and after the scan about 30 GB of disk space seems to have vanished according to software like Freespace but not according to the Finder's "Get Info" function. Where is it? How can I get it back?

In anticipation that most of the responses here would be to uninstall Avast, I did that and it did not solve the problem.
So I ask again: Does anyone have a solution that is actually a solution.
I am not interested in yet another lecture on how Macs don't have viruses etc etc. Whether or not they do now, there is no real reason they can't should some teenager in Russia take on the challenge of writing such viruses. Also, I use Parallels to run some essential Windows applications and I'm sure I will pick up viruses that way. I have the Windows version of Avast installed in the virtual machine and so far no problems with it--and that I'm keeping unless someone has a better idea for free Windows anti-viral software.
I am a long-time Mac user and I've heard it all, so spare me. Just advise if you have a specific solution to the problem I've got.

Free Disk space loss for no reason

I have several G4's running 10.3.9 that are losing disk space to the point of getting system volume errors I can not find where the lose is coming from no new installs except updates I have one now that loses 100MB a day for now reason delete unneccesary files looked at all new modify and still can't find what is using this disk space that wasn't there before are there hidden files that are being created or is there a system problem creating this.

your computer does write certain files such as logs. These are normally kept clean by maintenance scripts that run in the early hours of the morning, but if you turn off your computer or put it to sleep overnight they will not run.
I'd suggest checking out [Applejack for Panther|http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macosx/19596&vid=158470]
Here's a list of reading with some specifally mentioning vanishing space:
Where did my disk space go?
[http://www.macfixitforums.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=Forum38&Number=770243]
Disk Inventory (free) [http://www.derlien.com>
WhatSize (now shareware and only useful on <20GB drives until you buy it) [http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize>
Freeing space on your Mac OS X startup disk
[http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/freeingspace.html]
Amazing Disappearing Drive Space
[http://www.pinkmutant.com/articles/TigerMisc.html]
Increase HD Free Space
[http://macosx.com/forums/howto-faqs/275191-how-easily-increase-hd free-space-laptop.html]
How to free up my disk space
[http://www.macmaps.com/diskfull.html]

Disk space disappearing in Leopard

I had 16GB free before Leopard, did an upgrade install, so it took it's 5GB, and I was down to 11GB. Since then I've been leaking out disk space ever since. It got down to 1.6GB yesterday. I'm running File Vault so I let it compress space, and got back to 8.5GB this morning (note that's still 2.5GB that has disappeared). I've been watching it all day and it's gone from 8.5GB down to 7.06GB. I've download maybe a couple hundred megs of stuff.
What's going on? anyone else have this problem?

Allison,
As a follow-up to my earlier post to you.
I performed an 'erase and install' and the problem of vanishing space on my HD has gone.
I have run spotlight and restarted several times and the space on the HD has not reduced other than can be explained by my work.
Perhaps this also helps?
There is also something right about the 'erase and install' aside from the fact it solves (or so far) the issue. For other issues such as the "warning SUID file.." it has not however. I am using Leopard and enjoying it. I'm just being cautious and backing up to my external HD. If like me you do not have too many third party applications you can easily perform an 'erase and install' once you have backed up. I was able to import my e-mails and everything afterward. I used it as an opportunity to remove things on my HD that I didn't need and found I could gain more space on the HD as a result. One warning though it takes a while to re-install all the applications and so on. I had no idea I had collected so many external items i.e. software downloads, periphery apps, and so on.
Get advice before doing this though. I had someone at AppleCare explain before hand and I used my original 10.4 disks to erase the disk and reinstall Tiger. After setting everything up again I installed 10.5 from the Leopard installation disk. I installed it as a simple 'upgrade'. I suppose this may not be the same as an 'erase and install'. Again, I hope this helps.
Paul.
P.S. Be warned it takes hours (and hours) to complete this whole process.

I am not able to update iTunes keeps popping up message saying no free disk space I checked and there is enough to support the upgrade but I cant figure out why it wont let me. Help anyone!

So heres the deal, I updated my iphone and in order to put any music on it or even ringtones I have to have the most updated version of iTunes, unfortunately my macbook wont allow the update, I do have a lot of pictures and song stored on here but I have no documents I have deleted everything the only thing left on here is what the macbook came with. I checked and it says that I have enough memory so is there another reason I cant update. When I try and check for the update option in iTunes it says its up to date but I have version 10 something so I know its old, I haven't been able to update anything on here. Do I have to take it to the store or is there something that I can fix on my own because my warranty is up and I have nothing but problems when I go into an actual apple store.

If you want to try to clear even more disk space see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5872318?tstart=0

Low disk space in recovery disk (d) drive in window 8.1

I continue to receive the subject warning. I have never added any files to D, but I have 32.3 MB free of 25.5 GB. I have Administrator privilrges but am unable to view the files on D. When I click on recovery, I get an HP warning.

Hi @pjd10
I grasp that you are a low disk space error on recovery D. I regret that you are having that difficulty.
Here is a link to HP PCs - Error: Low Disk Space. You are running out of disk space on Recovery (Windows 8) that should guide you to resolving this issue.
Best of Luck!
Sparkles1
I work on behalf of HP
Please click “Accept as Solution ” if you feel my post solved your issue, it will help others find the solution.
Click the “Kudos, Thumbs Up" on the bottom right to say “Thanks” for helping!

Vanishing disk space

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