Hard drive cruft
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A while ago, I mentioned that I'm booting my iMac from a 2TB SSD in an external Thunderbolt enclosure. It's worked really well all this time, but I've noticed that I've been losing hard drive space. It went from 1.1 TB free to about 700 Gigs free over the period of about a month.
I did a search for large files, and the largest I could find was 140 gigs or so - my photo album.
Even all the German porn that Jon sent me wasn't taking up any space, so I didn't delete it.There was an OS update released last week, and I finally got around to installing it this AM. I now have 1.4 TB free.
What the hell? What got deleted?
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OS's are using more and more free space as cache. Especially as storage has gotten faster (SSD)
Often time there's a disconnect between how large something is on storage and how big the footprint is when it's running (sitting in ram).
Caching can bridge the gap by reducing the processing needed to get from smaller footprint to larger footprint.
I notice it a lot on my iphone - dunno if they've started doing that more aggressively on macs.
The annoying part is depending on which application you ask - it may give you a logical view of what's on disk (smaller footprint), while some utilities will show any data that's on your drive (including temp files and cache)
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OS's are using more and more free space as cache. Especially as storage has gotten faster (SSD)
Often time there's a disconnect between how large something is on storage and how big the footprint is when it's running (sitting in ram).
Caching can bridge the gap by reducing the processing needed to get from smaller footprint to larger footprint.
I notice it a lot on my iphone - dunno if they've started doing that more aggressively on macs.
The annoying part is depending on which application you ask - it may give you a logical view of what's on disk (smaller footprint), while some utilities will show any data that's on your drive (including temp files and cache)
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@taiwan_girl said in Hard drive cruft:
@George-K What update are you at? I am still at update 10.14.6, mainly because I am afraid to update further because I understand that Apple went to 64 architecture instead of 32 architecture (?), and some old programs may not work with the new update. Is there any way to determine this?
I'm running 10.15.15.
There's a way to find what applications are 32 bit and not compatible.
@George-K said in Hard drive cruft:
There's a way to find what applications are 32 bit and not compatible.
Thank you so much!!! I did that. A lot of programs that I dont know what they are listed as being 32 bit. LOL
Some that may be a problem for me are
Adobe Digital Editions (I used to down load books from library)
Garage Band (does this update with the new operating system)?
iMovie (does this update with the new operating system)?Other than those, i hope I am okay.
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A while ago, I mentioned that I'm booting my iMac from a 2TB SSD in an external Thunderbolt enclosure. It's worked really well all this time, but I've noticed that I've been losing hard drive space. It went from 1.1 TB free to about 700 Gigs free over the period of about a month.
I did a search for large files, and the largest I could find was 140 gigs or so - my photo album.
Even all the German porn that Jon sent me wasn't taking up any space, so I didn't delete it.There was an OS update released last week, and I finally got around to installing it this AM. I now have 1.4 TB free.
What the hell? What got deleted?
@George-K said in Hard drive cruft:
There was an OS update released last week, and I finally got around to installing it this AM. I now have 1.4 TB free.
What the hell? What got deleted?
Not sure ... I am guessing it might have something to do with TimeMachine "local snapshots." It's the only thing I can think of that might take up 300GB. :man-shrugging:
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@George-K said in Hard drive cruft:
There was an OS update released last week, and I finally got around to installing it this AM. I now have 1.4 TB free.
What the hell? What got deleted?
Not sure ... I am guessing it might have something to do with TimeMachine "local snapshots." It's the only thing I can think of that might take up 300GB. :man-shrugging:
@Axtremus said in Hard drive cruft:
@George-K said in Hard drive cruft:
There was an OS update released last week, and I finally got around to installing it this AM. I now have 1.4 TB free.
What the hell? What got deleted?
Not sure ... I am guessing it might have something to do with TimeMachine "local snapshots." It's the only thing I can think of that might take up 300GB. :man-shrugging:
Are those snapshots stored on my boot drive? I had no idea.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in Hard drive cruft:
There's a way to find what applications are 32 bit and not compatible.
Thank you so much!!! I did that. A lot of programs that I dont know what they are listed as being 32 bit. LOL
Some that may be a problem for me are
Adobe Digital Editions (I used to down load books from library)
Garage Band (does this update with the new operating system)?
iMovie (does this update with the new operating system)?Other than those, i hope I am okay.
@taiwan_girl iMovie and Garageband are installed and updated with the OS update.
Adobe Digital Editions is (I think) available in 64-bit for download from Adobe.com.
ETA: I just downloaded ADE, and installed it. Looks fine.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@Axtremus said in Hard drive cruft:
@George-K said in Hard drive cruft:
There was an OS update released last week, and I finally got around to installing it this AM. I now have 1.4 TB free.
What the hell? What got deleted?
Not sure ... I am guessing it might have something to do with TimeMachine "local snapshots." It's the only thing I can think of that might take up 300GB. :man-shrugging:
Are those snapshots stored on my boot drive? I had no idea.
@George-K said in Hard drive cruft:
Are those snapshots stored on my boot drive? I had no idea.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015
https://www.macworld.com/article/3260635/how-to-delete-time-machine-snapshots-on-your-mac.html
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@taiwan_girl iMovie and Garageband are installed and updated with the OS update.
Adobe Digital Editions is (I think) available in 64-bit for download from Adobe.com.
ETA: I just downloaded ADE, and installed it. Looks fine.
@George-K Thank you! I will upgrade sooner rather than later.
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I might have figured out what was causing the problem.
As Ax suggested, the "Time Machine Snapchat" was the probable culprit (though I couldn't verify it). It's an invisible file, so I never saw it.
So, what could have caused it to get so large?
In the last few weeks we've had power outages here, and my UPS was non-functional (Remember I asked about those? I did get a new UPS) and with power loss, the computer just turned off.
After restoration of power, I would consistently get an error message from Time Machine saying that the task couldn't be completed, throwing a "92" error code. This is a mysterious error code that I couldn't find the explanation for. Finally after some file deletions, several days, and changing preferences for Time Machine, it stopped throwing errors and everything appeared to be fine.
But...
I found out that when the computer crashes, Time Machine gets all confused, and it takes a long, long time for it to sort out what needs to be backed up and what doesn't. That's why it took a long time for Time Machine to stop giving errors.
I suspect that Time Machine was writing to that invisible file, with it growing larger with every attempt Time Machine made to back up. Then, when I upgraded the OS to the current version, the "snapshot" was deleted, freeing up a lot of space.
Does that make sense?
-
I might have figured out what was causing the problem.
As Ax suggested, the "Time Machine Snapchat" was the probable culprit (though I couldn't verify it). It's an invisible file, so I never saw it.
So, what could have caused it to get so large?
In the last few weeks we've had power outages here, and my UPS was non-functional (Remember I asked about those? I did get a new UPS) and with power loss, the computer just turned off.
After restoration of power, I would consistently get an error message from Time Machine saying that the task couldn't be completed, throwing a "92" error code. This is a mysterious error code that I couldn't find the explanation for. Finally after some file deletions, several days, and changing preferences for Time Machine, it stopped throwing errors and everything appeared to be fine.
But...
I found out that when the computer crashes, Time Machine gets all confused, and it takes a long, long time for it to sort out what needs to be backed up and what doesn't. That's why it took a long time for Time Machine to stop giving errors.
I suspect that Time Machine was writing to that invisible file, with it growing larger with every attempt Time Machine made to back up. Then, when I upgraded the OS to the current version, the "snapshot" was deleted, freeing up a lot of space.
Does that make sense?
@George-K Does to me, but I am not sure that that is your best endorsement! 5555
Somebody who actually knows something would be better to answer. LOL
