noob85

Q: Full hard drive messages wile having plenty of space.

Hi everbody,

 

Im using a 2012 MacMini with 16GB RAM and the stock 500GB HDD.

 

I don't know what to do. My MacMini gives me error messages all the time saying that my HDD Memory is Full - but it isn't.

 

I already emptied the bin. I transferred GB´s of Videos onto an external HDD. The Memory sometimes gets more and than is shrinks without having done anything.

 

Today I had 1,76GB free memory and wile watching a Video the same "missing HDD space" message showed up.

 

Also the amounts vary a lot. Yesterday it showed me 210GB of Videos (green)- today after transferring not even 10GB of videos it now says i just got 12GB left and the difference is now on the (yellow) colored data.

 

Can someone please help me...

 

Hope i explained myself good enough.

 

Many thx in advance!

Mac mini, OS X El Capitan (10.11.6)

Posted on Oct 2, 2016 3:02 PM

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Q: Full hard drive messages wile having plenty of space.

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  • Helpful answers

  • by Eric Root,Helpful

    Eric Root Eric Root Oct 3, 2016 5:05 AM in response to noob85
    Level 9 (73,376 points)
    iTunes
    Oct 3, 2016 5:05 AM in response to noob85
  • by trevoz,Helpful

    trevoz trevoz Oct 3, 2016 5:05 AM in response to noob85
    Level 4 (1,409 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 5:05 AM in response to noob85

    Open a Terminal window and type:

     

    df -h

     

    and then paste the output here.

  • by noob85,

    noob85 noob85 Oct 3, 2016 2:30 AM in response to trevoz
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 2:30 AM in response to trevoz

    df -hLast login: Mon Oct  3 10:53:27 on console

    ......-Mac-mini:~ ......... df -h

    Filesystem      Size   Used  Avail Capacity  iused   ifree %iused  Mounted on

    /dev/disk0s2   325Gi  324Gi  1.7Gi   100% 84886806  436486   99%   /

    devfs          178Ki  178Ki    0Bi   100%      616       0  100%   /dev

    /dev/disk0s4   139Gi  125Gi   14Gi    90% 32786501 3744179   90%   /Volumes/Privat

    map -hosts       0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%        0       0  100%   /net

    map auto_home    0Bi    0Bi    0Bi   100%        0       0  100%   /home

    ......-Mac-mini:~ .........

  • by noob85,

    noob85 noob85 Oct 3, 2016 2:45 AM in response to Eric Root
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 2:45 AM in response to Eric Root

    Hi Eric, I did the re-indexing and the occupancy-bars of the HDD went all to (yellow). After a wile they started reordering themselves, but the actual amount of free Space hasn't change. Even though it made an important change to me because its not the green bar (videos) thats occupying 3/4 of the space anymore. Now its (yellow) which makes mote sense because i moved most of the Videos to get more space. Still don't understand what all that (yellow) bar should be... The main amount of stuff i saved on my mac are videos and pictures... investigation has not yet finished

     

    Many many thx for that good advice/information of `how to´ reorder the memory-bars

  • by trevoz,

    trevoz trevoz Oct 3, 2016 3:09 AM in response to noob85
    Level 4 (1,409 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 3:09 AM in response to noob85

    Here's the problem:

     

    /dev/disk0s2   325Gi  324Gi  1.7Gi   100% 84886806  436486   99%   /

     

    You have used 99% of the inodes (data structure in the filesystem that records information about the file). This is why you are getting the low disk space warning.

     

    Do you have lots of small files in your Documents folder maybe?

  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Oct 3, 2016 4:01 AM in response to trevoz
    Level 6 (12,545 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 4:01 AM in response to trevoz

    Not just the inodes. The system reports just over 1GB of free space.

  • by noob85,

    noob85 noob85 Oct 3, 2016 5:13 AM in response to trevoz
    Level 1 (8 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 5:13 AM in response to trevoz

    The only Files i have are Videos from my GoPro/Sony and my DSLR. Maybe a total of 10 downloaded Musik files and 5 Apps/Programs. Thats it. Im actually just using the Mac for Video editing, Research on the web and hear Youtube music. All my other Stuff i got on an external HDD.

     

    Last week when all these Problems started i went to the Master HDD and added up all the GB´s in the 4 Folders i have. The total amount of GB´s was much less than the reported amount shown in the HDD info window on 'about this Mac'.

     

    That´s why I think there is some kind of Bug. I will do this calculation again as soon as im Home to see if something has changes since i did the re-indexing.

  • by trevoz,

    trevoz trevoz Oct 3, 2016 5:23 AM in response to noob85
    Level 4 (1,409 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 5:23 AM in response to noob85

    It really does seem that you are running out of disk space. Have you emptied the trash lately?

     

    To find where all the space has gone, you can use this command in a Terminal window:

     

    cd /

    du -h -d1

     

    It will list every top level folder and show how much space it is using. You can then check those folders which are using the most.

  • by Luis Sequeira1,

    Luis Sequeira1 Luis Sequeira1 Oct 3, 2016 5:37 AM in response to noob85
    Level 6 (12,545 points)
    Mac OS X
    Oct 3, 2016 5:37 AM in response to noob85

    noob85 wrote:

     

    The only Files i have are Videos from my GoPro/Sony and my DSLR. Maybe a total of 10 downloaded Musik files and 5 Apps/Programs. Thats it.

     

     

     

    Video files take a huge amount of space. You are not saying how much space they take, but seem to assume it is not much. Open a Finder window and do View->Show Status Bar. What does it say at the bottom of the window regarding available space?

     

    I may be wrong, but I am inclined to believe that you are indeed running low on disk space.

    The Terminal commands that you ran concur with this notion.

    You said you emptied the trash before, but just to make sure, take a look at it and make sure it is empty:

    Screen Shot 2016-10-03 at 13.37.15.png