ckbh

Q: what is storage "other" and how big should it be?

Please see the image below... this has come about since I upgraded to Lion.  It appears my drive is nearly full, and my Aperture 3 is running so slow it has become virtually non-functional.  What do the yellow bars consist of, and why has this changed just recently?  When I search help forums they all say the "other" should never be more than one-third of the rest of the information on your hard drive.  I have run disk repair, and it comes back saying my drive is fine.  Is this a "lion thing"?

 

 

 

Screen Shot 2011-08-28 at 5.40.21 PM.png

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Aug 28, 2011 5:01 PM

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Q: what is storage "other" and how big should it be?

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  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Aug 28, 2011 5:12 PM in response to ckbh
    Level 10 (271,123 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 28, 2011 5:12 PM in response to ckbh

    "Other" refers to everything that isn't classified as Audio, Movies, Photos, Apps, or Backups. A boot drive should maintain 10 GBs or 10% of the drive's capacity as free space, whichever is greater. At 20 GBs of 750 GBs free you are stretching the limits. You should have around 70 GBs free, if possible. However, 20 GBs doesn't represent a potential problem. It will if it drops under 3-5 GBs.

     

    You external drive is empty, so you might think about what files you have that could be moved to the external drive. I'd suggest maybe moving all your photos since they represent 250 GBs of space you could regain by moving them to the external drive or a partition on that drive. Alternatively, consider using the 2 TB external drive for your TM backups and the 1 TB external drive for storage.

  • by ckbh,

    ckbh ckbh Aug 28, 2011 9:17 PM in response to Kappy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 28, 2011 9:17 PM in response to Kappy

    Thank you for your response... I am still stumped as to why this "other" is so large since I upgraded to Lion, and why, coincidentally... my mac is now running at a snails pace.  I can't help but wonder if there is a correlation, and if I have what some people are referring to as a "memory leak".  My time machine backups are taking FOREVER as well.

     

    I have hardly any other programs on this mac... the standard stuff that comes with the mac, Aperture 3, an old version of iLife and iWork, and a new version of MS office for windows (YUCK! but I need it for work)... I wouldn't think that should take up 452GB of space... 

     

    I had my hard drive partitioned, and I was running VMware fusion.  I have deleted that program, and I un-partitioned my drive after I upgraded to lion, maybe there is an issue there.

     

    Just want my speed and reliability back, it all worked so well before the upgrade.

  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Aug 28, 2011 9:24 PM in response to ckbh
    Level 10 (271,123 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 28, 2011 9:24 PM in response to ckbh

    Clear some space off your hard drive, add more RAM, reinstall OS X. Preferably, in that order.

  • by SteveKir,

    SteveKir SteveKir Aug 28, 2011 10:54 PM in response to ckbh
    Level 3 (545 points)
    Aug 28, 2011 10:54 PM in response to ckbh

    How did you get this window to appear? My "About this Mac" does not offer it.

  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Aug 28, 2011 11:00 PM in response to SteveKir
    Level 10 (271,123 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 28, 2011 11:00 PM in response to SteveKir

    It's in Lion. If you are using Lion select About This Mac, then click on the More Info button. In the window that appears click on the Storage link in the toolbar area.

  • by ckbh,

    ckbh ckbh Aug 29, 2011 10:17 AM in response to Kappy
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Aug 29, 2011 10:17 AM in response to Kappy

    Seems there are quite a few people posting about this, and no-one has the answer.  The closest thing I have seen to a correct answer is a post about Lion creating a temporary back-up file on your internal drive that is overwritten as needed... it is not permanent. If this is the case, why isn't it in the documentation anywhere?  It all seems very confusing to me, they suggest turning off Time Machine... I don't want to do that.

     

    If my drive is only half full, I shouldn't have to clear it off, and I have re-installed the OSX already, it didn't change anything.  On other posts, people say RAM is irrelevant to this issue. I think I am off to the apple store to speak to someone there.  I will let you know what they say. 

     

    P.S. The empty drive is to house my Aperture 3 Library, as you suggested.  I have not moved it yet... I am still tagging and sorting images (sooooo slow!).  I hoping Aperture puts out an update really soon so it will play nice with Lion... Otherwise it may take upwards of 24 hours to do this...

  • by Kappy,

    Kappy Kappy Aug 29, 2011 2:26 PM in response to ckbh
    Level 10 (271,123 points)
    Desktops
    Aug 29, 2011 2:26 PM in response to ckbh

    No. The backup theory is wrong. If you have a notebook Mac with TM and Snapshots enabled, then TM makes a local snapshot of your drive if no backup drive is connected. However, Snapshots do not funtion on desktop Macs. Snapshots are documented as part of Time Machine but only on notebooks.

  • by ckbh,Solvedanswer

    ckbh ckbh Sep 1, 2011 7:08 AM in response to ckbh
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Sep 1, 2011 7:08 AM in response to ckbh

    Well, I went to the Apple store in Calgary today... took a picture of my hard drive screen shot with my iPhone (rather ingenious) and showed it to them there.  Their conclusion is that there is something seriously amiss with my hard drive... They said there is no way that "other" should be anywhere that big.  Other consists of the operating system and software, but it should be closer to 20-30GB, not 452GB.  Their conclusion is that my old partition has messed up my hard drive, and I have to take the computer in for service... So, I will be making an appointment with someone at the genius bar, and will be getting my baby fixed properly.  This one I will leave to the experts!

  • by Yijian Cao,

    Yijian Cao Yijian Cao Sep 1, 2011 8:59 AM in response to ckbh
    Level 1 (35 points)
    Sep 1, 2011 8:59 AM in response to ckbh

    I am having the same issues. So please post your comments after yours get fixed.

  • by Cheung James,

    Cheung James Cheung James Oct 6, 2011 6:18 AM in response to ckbh
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 6, 2011 6:18 AM in response to ckbh

    I am having the same issue with my mbp after upgrading to lion and the newest iPhoto. There is also problem with syncing iPhoto which many users are complaining.  Any solution yet?

  • by ckbh,

    ckbh ckbh Oct 8, 2011 9:26 AM in response to ckbh
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 8, 2011 9:26 AM in response to ckbh

    I still have not taken my girl in to the genius bar... I am trying to better understand the contents of my hard drive before I resort to drastic measures.  I have spoken to two different people at the apple store, and they are both stumped!

     

    Do any of you shoot in RAW format?  I am wondering if the orange "pictures" bar is just the jpg snapshot of each photo that is stored within the RAW metadata, and the "Other" is where the Mac is putting the RAW metadata... does that make any sense to anyone? 

     

    I downloaded an app called Daisy Disk, and it is not reading anything abnormal, however it is reading my HD as 665.1 GB which seems too small.

     

    I had my hard drive partitioned to use parallels, but I have restored it, at least I think I have!  The partitioned section was much smaller than what is reading as "other", so I don't think that is the source of my problems, at least I hope it's not, because my Mac is showing my drive as unpartitioned, so I don't know how to fix it if that is what is wrong!

  • by ckbh,

    ckbh ckbh Oct 8, 2011 9:46 AM in response to ckbh
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Oct 8, 2011 9:46 AM in response to ckbh

    Screen Shot 2011-10-08 at 10.44.53 AM.png

    The 1TB drive has ONLY copies of my photo libraries (iPhoto and Aperture), yet there is a large section of "other".  This leads me to believe it has something to do with RAW data...

  • by S.light,

    S.light S.light Feb 11, 2012 1:47 PM in response to ckbh
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Feb 11, 2012 1:47 PM in response to ckbh

    Did you ever get the answer?..Did you get the "other" cleaned up? I ask this because I just posted the same question. Was there something wrong with the HD? I have an Imac for 6 months now and my Hd "other" is at 907.31 GB full....THATS CRAZY! Please help!

  • by ckbh,Helpful

    ckbh ckbh Mar 3, 2012 7:49 AM in response to S.light
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Mar 3, 2012 7:49 AM in response to S.light

    My best guess is that this is the "raw" portion of the photos I have taken with my Canon cameras.  The "photos" (orange) section is probably just the jpeg image that is embedded in each raw file, and the remaining data from the raw file is being read as "other".  When I back up just my photos onto an external hard drive, it reads in the same proportions as this drive, with a large section of yellow... The two assistants I spoke to at the apple store both thought this was likely the case as well.  What we need is someone who knows the apple OS and also shoots in raw to confirm this hunch, but I don't know any apple gurus who are also photographers.  All I do know is my pictures are definately eating up my storage space.

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