Start up disk space

Question

Level 1

11 points

Start up disk space

I keep getting a message lately that says my Start Up disk is almost full and that I need to delete some of my files. What does this mean exactly and how do I perform this task. I noticed this has started as I have been using iMovie lately if that helps at all. Thanks.

MacBook Pro 15" / iMac 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 17", Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Jan 23, 2009 6:37 PM

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Answer 1

Zlig

Level 4

1,340 points

Jan 23, 2009 6:58 PM in response to WRC04

Hi - what this means is that your hard disk has very little free space left and this could cause your Mac to start behaving erratically. As you suggest this may be caused by iMovie which uses very large files.

One solution is to purchase some kind of external storage (external FW or USB hard disk) and move your movie files to this drive thus freeing up space on your startup disk.

You can also change the default location where your Mac stores movies (currently Macintosh HD > Users > YourUserName > Movies to the external drive. One way of doing this is to create an alias folder of the folder containing your movies and place the alias in the default "Movies" folder.

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Answer 2

BDAqua

Level 10

239,213 points

Jan 23, 2009 6:58 PM in response to WRC04

On the Desktop, click on your Hard Drives icon, do a Get Info and it will tell you the amount used & amount of free space.

You need to keep at least 20%+ of it free for best operation.

You need to move some stuff off to another HDD or CDs/DVDs.

How much free space is on the HD, where has all the space gone?

WhatSize...

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/13006/

Disk Inventory X...

http://www.derlien.com/

GrandPerspective...

http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/

The issue will be more complicated i you're using Filevault.

Please ask if you need more help or have questions.

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