Hard drive space doesn't add up

Question

Hard drive space doesn't add up

Alright, here’s the deal:

My MacBook’s hard drive has nothing but the standard 5 folders. When I look at their “Get Info” panes, they are supposedly the following sizes:

+*• Applications: 3.83 GB*+
+*• Developer: 2.44 GB*+
+*• Library: 13.56 GB*+
+*• System: 4.34 GB*+
+*• Users: 30.56 GB*+

As the astute mathematicians among you will note, this totals to +*54.73 GB*+. If this number is accurate — and it seems right to me — then I’ve got nothing to worry about.

HOWEVER! The “Get Info” pane for my whole hard drive reads:

+*Macintosh HD*+
+*• Capacity: 111.47 GB*+
+*• Available: 3.59 GB*+
+*• Used: 107.88 GB*+

If this number is right, then I’m concerned. But I don’t feel like I have anywhere near that much stuff!

Why doesn’t the math add up????

MacBook, Mac OS X (10.5.6)

Posted on Jul 9, 2009 5:25 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Niel

Level 10

726,935 points

Jul 9, 2009 5:28 PM in response to thecommexokid

Why doesn’t the math add up?

Because there are a number of invisible folders. Use a tool such as Disk Inventory X or OmniDiskSweeper.

(45384)

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Answer 2

Jul 9, 2009 6:55 PM in response to Niel

Alright, I downloaded and ran Disk Inventory X, and not much has changed. There were a couple more gigs hiding in my private and usr folders, but absolutely everything that DIX found still only adds up to 60 GB. Yet DIX agrees with ‘Get Info’ that I’m using 111 GB.

A few screenshots:
• http://harddrivespacedoesntaddup.googlepages.com/HDfull.png
• http://harddrivespacedoesntaddup.googlepages.com/HDhalffull.png

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Answer 3

y_p_w

Level 6

17,642 points

Jul 9, 2009 6:57 PM in response to Niel

Niel wrote:

Why doesn’t the math add up?

Because there are a number of invisible folders. Use a tool such as Disk Inventory X or OmniDiskSweeper.

Not sure why normal hidden directories would result in that much disk space being used. Maybe an uncleared trash can?

You can get a quick overview by opening up a Terminal window and typing in "ls -al". That should show the hidden directories/files, which all start with a ".". In addition there are a lot of directories in there at the root directory that don't show up in Finder.

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Answer 4

Jul 9, 2009 7:25 PM in response to y_p_w

Not sure why normal hidden directories would result in that much disk space being used. Maybe an uncleared trash can?

No, trash can is emptied, permissions are verified, all that jazz...

You can get a quick overview by opening up a Terminal window and typing in "ls -al". That should show the hidden directories/files, which all start with a ".". In addition there are a lot of directories in there at the root directory that don't show up in Finder.

This list matches exactly the list that Disk Inventory X came up with (though of course Terminal doesn’t give sizes). So I don’t think the ls command is giving us any more info that what’s in my last post.

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Answer 5

Jul 9, 2009 10:23 PM in response to thecommexokid

thecommexokid wrote:
A few screenshots:
• http://harddrivespacedoesntaddup.googlepages.com/HDfull.png
• http://harddrivespacedoesntaddup.googlepages.com/HDhalffull.png

I just noticed a curious discrepancy within Disk Inventory X itself, which you can see in the screenshots from my earlier post.

In DIX’s little window where you choose the drive, it says:
Macintosh HD
Capacity: 111.5 GB
Used: 107.9 GB
Free: 3.6 GB

But in the main results window, the title bar reads:
Macintosh HD (57.4 GB)

This seems to be the heart of the problem.

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Answer 6

khassani

Level 3

946 points

Jul 10, 2009 3:09 PM in response to thecommexokid

Did you add/erase partitions? What does it look like in Disk Utility?

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Answer 7

Jul 10, 2009 7:52 PM in response to khassani

khassani wrote:
Did you add/erase partitions? What does it look like in Disk Utility?

Disk Utility looks perfectly normal; here’s a screenshot:
http://harddrivespacedoesntaddup.googlepages.com/DiskUtil.png

But you’re right — it’s acting like I partitioned my drive in half.

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Answer 8

Soft Reset

Level 4

1,790 points

Jul 10, 2009 10:18 PM in response to thecommexokid

Hi thecommexokid,

It's odd, I read your thread last night and didn't respond right away (didn't really have a good response) because in my previous experiences with using Disk Inventory X and Omni Disk Sweeper the results have always matched up with what Finder stated.

Earlier today while fooling with my iMac and I suddenly noticed that I had "phantom" 34GB of my machine. I did all the same troubleshooting and steps that you had done and it wasn't adding up. Thankfully my iMac is often a "test bed" so I did the following:

- Manually backed up to an external drive my home folder
- Partitioned the drive to 4 partitions and then back to one
- Clean install of the OS, ran all software updates (numbers add up)
- Reimported my home folder (numbers still add up)
- Reinstall of all of my applications/games/etc (numbers still add up)

I'm thinking, based on what was done and the resolution, that somehow the volume header or partition map was "thinking" that something was on the drive that wasn't actually on it. That's my only explanation and it's far from logical. I guess in hindsight I should have done a full TM backup, wipe the system and then reload to see if it fixed or still allocated the phantom block.

I'm not advocating you follow those steps but as I was in a similar situation, this ultimately resolved my issue.

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Answer 9

Jul 10, 2009 11:30 PM in response to thecommexokid

Well, guys, despite all of your great suggestions, I wound up solving this one on my own.

Based on somebody’s suggestion — and I forget where I found this tip, I’d like to be able to thank them — I did a +*sudo du -cxhd 1 /*+ in Terminal, and found that my Library folder, which Finder said was only 15 GB or so, was actually something in the range of 60 GB. By continually doing a du on the largest directory I found, I was able to follow the trail of the missing 50 GB to my Google Desktop Index folder. Apparently, Desktop’s index restricts permissions in such a way that Finder or various programs like Disk Inventory X can’t tell how big it grows.

Anyhow, since it’s pretty pointless when you’ve already got Spotlight, I just uninstalled Google Desktop (it comes with its own uninstaller, which you can find at /Library/Google/Google Desktop/Uninstaller) and restarted, and — behold! — I now have 52.74 GB available.

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Answer 10

frodolives

Level 4

1,765 points

Oct 3, 2009 3:48 PM in response to thecommexokid

I'm working on my sister-in-law's Macbook and she's got the same issue. Doesn't have google desktop. How can I figure out which "invisible" file is bloated.
5 folders add up to 32g, HD is a 60. She's down to 1.6g free according to Finder.

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Answer 11

JasonFear

Level 5

4,965 points

Oct 3, 2009 3:51 PM in response to frodolives

Hi frodolives,

Did you try running the various programs that were talked about earlier in the thread? If so, what does it report? Can you give us a break down of the folders?

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Answer 12

frodolives

Level 4

1,765 points

Oct 3, 2009 4:05 PM in response to JasonFear

I didn't run them simply because they didn't seem to help the original poster. I'm waiting for her to get back and authenticate so I can dump a few old users' stuff. I will try Directx a minute. It says capacity 55, used 54, 1.4 available. Not sure what I'm supposed to do with this utility though.

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Answer 13

frodolives

Level 4

1,765 points

Oct 3, 2009 6:40 PM in response to frodolives

I'm going through the various folders but if Disk Inventory X doesn't see hidden folders then what's the point? I had success though, I deleted an older user (her husband, my brother) who used this Macbook for awhile when his was on the fritz. After dumping that account , voila back to 16g free space (about right I think). As I recall Directory Inventory reported that whole users folder at 92K or something, probably won't inventory due to permissions or something?

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