Why is my external SSD drive almost full?

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Level 1

6 points

Why is my external SSD drive almost full?

Our "main" computer is a 6-year-old iMac that's running on the latest version of Monterey. The 1-terabyte hard drive on that computer had gotten so nearly full that all operations were slowed down to a crawl. Well over half the files on that computer are my photographs, some of which were digital to start with and some of which are scanned negatives.

Yesterday I bought a 1-terabyte external SSD drive that I intended to hold my photos, so that I could take them off the iMac and speed up its operation. Today I copied all the contents of the Pictures folder onto that drive, and I've been comparing the files on the computer with those on the external drive to make sure that everything had copied accurately before deleting the pictures from the computer. What surprised me was that even though the copied files added up to about 640 gigabytes, and the software on the drive was measured in kilobytes, the figures at the bottom of the window for the external drive said (accurately) 57 items and (questionable) 118.4 gigabytes available. I took a number of the files off the disc (files I intended to keep on the iMac), and the number of items dropped appropriately, but I still have only 118.4 GB available on that drive. What gives?

iMac 21.5″, OS X 10.11

Posted on Jun 29, 2022 5:54 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

LyleFromVegas

Level 2

198 points

Jul 1, 2022 12:25 PM in response to GrammaHobbit

I'm a photographer also with thousands of pictures myself so I know where you're coming from.

As a suggestion, consider an external drive that has RAID (LOL sorry for the acronym) but a RAID 1 is actually two drives to store your pictures. When you write a file to it, the device automatically makes a backup copy to the other disk so it is virtually impossible to lose photos unless your other half takes a hammer to it. A 4Tb Buffalo Tech Linkstation from Amazon is about $300 but you can search for drives that are "RAID 1." A hard drive or SSD will always fail, it's just a matter of when. With a RAID drive when one drive fails, it will automatically switch over to the other hard disk and warn you. You don't know anything is wrong beyond the beeping. Then you just buy a replacement drive and plug it in. The device will sense the new drive and automatically copy over the files until it is a mirror of the other drive.

If you have a home network then you could consider a NAS drive (yet another acronym). NAS or Network Attached Storage is a storage device that can be accessed from any computer, phone, or smart TV on your home network. I use a Qnap TS-673 NAS drive with RAID 1 to store my images and personal files on. NAS drives are typically more expensive but have more capability.

And a hard disk is not an SSD but I'm old school and still think of them as hard disks.

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,830 points

Jul 1, 2022 11:32 AM in response to GrammaHobbit

Once you start talking about "formatting the drive" and "exFAT," you lose me. I'm not a geek;

You don’t have to be a geek to understand the most basic tasks involved in managing a computer. Like all tools, you have to learn how to use it correctly.

When I plugged the SSD drive in (and, no, it's not a "hard drive"; it's an SSD), it apparently self-formatted. I was never asked how I wanted to format it. If it had, I would have been stymied as to what options to choose.

Almost every drive comes preformatted for Windows. The SSD was most likely ExFAT since you didn’t have to install anything to use it.

You should format it APFS (or format the new one when you get it).

Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

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Answer 3

Jun 30, 2022 5:02 PM in response to GrammaHobbit

Were the pictures stored in the Photos program? If so the images are in a database and not individual files. Copying them out to the external drive could result in a difference in size. First I'd recommend that you see if you can exchange the drive for a 2Tb or larger drive. That will give you more room to work with. If you format the external drive as exFAT then you can read the files on Windows or MacOS if that's a consideration. Keep in mind that a 1 Tb drive may not give you the full space as they typically have less memory than you'd expect because of the definition of hard disk size.

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Answer 4

GrammaHobbit Author

Level 1

6 points

Jul 1, 2022 10:29 AM in response to LyleFromVegas

The pictures in question weren't in the Photos program; they were in the Pictures file. I have everything set up so that when I scan negatives or upload digital photos from my camera, they go straight to Pictures. I like to work with photos from Pictures and move them into Photos after I've gotten them into their final form. And I find it easier to locate a specific photo in Pictures than in Photos because I have them filed strictly by date and event, so that I don't have screen space taken up by images and can see a lot more of my content at one time without having to scroll all over the place.

Once you start talking about "formatting the drive" and "exFAT," you lose me. I'm not a geek; I'm just an octogenarian with a photo hobby and a couple of thousand negatives that I still have to scan onto the computer so that I can work with them and use them in applications like my calendar program. When I plugged the SSD drive in (and, no, it's not a "hard drive"; it's an SSD), it apparently self-formatted. I was never asked how I wanted to format it. If it had, I would have been stymied as to what options to choose.

I'm thinking about returning the 1T drive and getting a 3T drive online (Best Buy didn't have any SSD drives larger than 1T). And I'll just have to stop scanning negatives until I have some decent storage space for those photos. That dinosaur is operating at a crawl, and we're not in a hurry to invest in a new computer. The newest ones have ridiculously small SSD drives unless you want to spend big bucks for one with a larger drive.

Another option that a couple of my online friends suggested might be an NAS system. I'm not sure about that; I really wanted an SSD drive because of limited space in our work area. Any input?

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,830 points

Jun 30, 2022 4:42 AM in response to GrammaHobbit

What file system format did you use on the SSD? The file allocation table may have a larger min file size.

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Why is my external SSD drive almost full?

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