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#1 2007-04-13 7:03 pm
Hard Drive Space disapprearing without a trace...
Ok,
so I posted something on here a few weeks ago about poor computer performance, and the problem is deeply rooted in me not having much HD space free at all times. I immediately trashed a bunch of stuff and was sitting pretty(by relative comparison) at over 3 GB free. I know this is not enough still, but heres my problem:
It seems my HD space just disappears without me doing anything. Sometimes all 3 gigs of it. I am 99% certain i've installed/downloaded NOTHING over 10 mb since cracking down on this space. Now, I'm sitting at 1.63 gb available, AFTER a restart, that was preceded by me cleaning out many Caches using Onyx. I figured this shuold be where all my space is hiding, but alas, tis not.
Does anyone know where my space is going? I know its probably being used well by something important, but Im doing my best to trash things I don't need, and I seem to be fighting an uphill battle.
Also, I have used sound studio before, and have had hour long recordings that I have not saved. The program crashes before I can do anything with it. I am worried this file is in purgatory somewhere in my harddrive but can't find where it would be.
Any help appreciated, thanks.
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#2 2007-04-13 7:05 pm
- Nefarious
- Tuning Fork
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- From: 45°22"N 84°57"W
- Registered: 2002-09-30
- Posts: 7998
Re: Hard Drive Space disapprearing without a trace...
I bet you're using iTunes a lot.
Use OmniDiskSweeper to start. http://www.omnigroup.com/applications/omnidisksweeper/
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#3 2007-04-13 7:16 pm
Re: Hard Drive Space disapprearing without a trace...
thanks,
I tracked down those evasion sound studio temp files which solved a few of my woes, and Ill check out that software.
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#4 2007-04-13 7:36 pm
- D'Eyncourt
- OMGDICTATOR
- Registered: 2001-12-27
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Re: Hard Drive Space disapprearing without a trace...
If you are using File Vault (the Mac OS X drive encryption program), then what happens is that when files are deleted that space isn't properly recovered until you either log out or reboot your Mac. Copy some large files, delete them, check how much space you curently have, log out, and when you log in you should see that you have recovered that space afterward.
This behavior is inherent with File Vault and short of removing it you cannot change this.
Also I've found that in iTunes I had a lot of iTunes "ghosts" (meaning files which were among the iTunes files but not listed in iTunes, mostly podcasts). You might check the group folders like podcasts, movies, TV shows, audiobooks, etc. and see if there aren't any unlisted files there. When I did this recently, I recovered about 750 MBs of space by dumping files that iTunes had saved but not properly removed for deletion.
BOYCOTT SONY
"I think the question now is not whether you went to Vietnam or whether you didn't, whether you fought in the war or fought against the war. I think the only question is whether we can find a president smart enough never to make a mistake like that again"--Molly Ivins, way back in 1992
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#5 2007-04-13 9:56 pm
- Soul_Survivor
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- Registered: 2007-04-13
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Re: Hard Drive Space disapprearing without a trace...
Really, I think you need a larger hard drive.. or you need to delete more stuff.
3GB is not much space at all.
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#6 2007-04-13 10:10 pm
- Nefarious
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Re: Hard Drive Space disapprearing without a trace...
Quite. 3 GB is below the commonly accepted safety limit.
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#7 2007-04-13 10:15 pm
- Soul_Survivor
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- Registered: 2007-04-13
- Posts: 15
Re: Hard Drive Space disapprearing without a trace...
Personally, I'm thinking of buying an iMac, and maybe also a Mac Book Pro.
I'll probably choose to increase the size of the default hard drives.
And most likely I'll continue to choose external hard drives for the majority of my graphics work.
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