what is classed as 'other' on lion about this mac storage?

LeighCanipa wrote:

I downloaded omni disk sweeper to loacate the 'other' files taking up space on my hard drive and it has found my .sparsebundle files (197GB)

Can anyone advise me if it is ok to delete my .sparsebundle files? i have 197GB of 8.0MB Bands files.

That depends on what's in it. 😉

To be that large, it sounds like it's either:

An encrypted File Vault 1 (or "Legacy File Vault") home folder, from Snow Leopard. If so, it should be named <home folder name>.sparsebundle. Double-click it to mount it; a disk image will appear on your desktop and/or Finder Sidebar. Double-click that to open it, and you'll probably be asked for the password. Inside it should be all the folders for the user account -- Desktop, Documents, Download, etc. If you no longer want that account to be protected by File Vault, turn it off via System Preferences > Security. That will decrypt it into a "normal" home folder.

A set of Time Machine backups made over a network. If so, it should be named <Computer Name>.sparsebundle (or perhaps <Computer Name><string of 12 numbers/letters>.sparsebundle). Double-click it to mount it; a disk image will appear on your desktop and/or Finder Sidebar, named Time Machine Backups (or Backups of <computer name>). Double-click that to open it, and you should see a single Backups.backupdb folder containing a single folder named for the computer that was backed-up; inside that is a series of date-stamped backup folders.

In either event, if you want to delete it, delete the sparse bundle (move it to the trash). Emptying the trash will probably take a very long time.

If it's not one of those, open it (as above) and see what's inside.

Thanks, I deleted this and I have now i've been locked out of my FireVault account.

When the device starts up I get the log in screen and it asks for my password. I type the password but it displays a message saying that i am unable to gain access to the fireVault account "username" at this time.

Is this a problem which can be worked around.

Cheers, Leigh

LeighCanipa wrote:

Thanks, I deleted this and I have now i've been locked out of my FireVault account.

When the device starts up I get the log in screen and it asks for my password. I type the password but it displays a message saying that i am unable to gain access to the fireVault account "username" at this time.

Is this a problem which can be worked around.

No, sorry. You deleted the encrypted home folder. 😟 It's gone.

Im new to mac. I have the same issue with wondering what is other and how to reduce it. What is mach kernel would that explain the other? I saw it in the omnidisk sweeper

Djjecky wrote:

Im new to mac. I have the same issue with wondering what is other and how to reduce it.

It's a mostly meaningless category. 😟 See Lion's Storage Display for details.

What is mach kernel would that explain the other? I saw it in the omnidisk sweeper

That's part of the operating system, and shouldn't be more than 15-20 MBs. Do not touch it.

Look mostly at the things in your home folder -- typically music, photos, and video take up lots of space.

There are some other things that can take up a lot of space, and are mostly hidden. See Where did my Disk Space go? for a few common ones.

thanks. Ill check it out

my 'other' is 362.61 gb can anyone help

Yes. Please see my post two above yours.

I am having the same problem. 176 GB in "other", but no apparent reason. I did an omnidisksweep, which didn't provide any insight. See screen shots below:

I can't figure out how we arrive at 178 GB of other from Omnidisk - is there something hidden that I could get rid of? My iMac is SOOOOOOOOO slow recently, and I am convinced this is the reason....

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

thebullers

thebullers wrote:

. . .

I can't figure out how we arrive at 178 GB of other from Omnidisk

You can't really compare the Storage display to the Omni display; they don't treat the same things the same way. Plus, the Storage display comes from the Spotlight index; if you've excluded things from indexing, or the indexing isn't up to date, a lot will show up in Other instead of the proper category.

is there something hidden that I could get rid of? My iMac is SOOOOOOOOO slow recently, and I am convinced this is the reason....

You have a 500 GB drive; 414 GB is in your home folder. Most of that is either Pictures or Movies. Start there.

Empty the iPhoto trash (it's separate from "normal" trash). See if you have lots of pictures or movies you don't need any more; if so, delete them.

If not, consider getting either a larger internal HD or an external HD that you can move your photos and/or movies to.

Much less significantly, the Public and Library sub-folders in your home folder are fairly large, too. There may well be things you need there, but it's worth a look.

I am not surewhat isgoing on omni sweeper is showing what I believe disk usageshould be-about 122 gigs. and if you add up just photos and the other then i have 430 gigs used up on a 320 gig hard drive?

Rroskey wrote:

. .

omni sweeper is showing what I believe disk usageshould be-about 122 gigs.

No. There's about 273 GB used, assuming Spotlight is up to date.

The free apps like Omni don't show any size at all for things the logged-on user isn't normally allowed to see, such as the usually-hidden system folders tmp and var, the Versions database (.DocumentRevisions-V100), the File System Event Store (.fseventsd), Spotlight index (.Spotlight-V100), and various other files and folders.

If you have more than one user account, it shows little or nothing for users other than the logged-on user, since one user, even an Admin user, can't normally see much, if any, of a different user's stuff.

See Lion's Storage Display for details; and the link there to Where did my Disk Space go? for some of the common things that can be taking up space, and ways to deal with them.

and if you add up just photos and the other then i have 430 gigs used up on a 320 gig hard drive?

I assume you mean on the Storage display? If so, it shows Photos as 184 MB, not 184 GB.

I miss read the mb-gb. I dont have any other users on my computer. Still isnt 174 gigs a bit large for system files? I have been to Where did my Disk Space go? I turned off time capsule and it was large before I turned it off, and I got 30 gigs back from it. I did a disk verify and it said that the harddrive was corrupted and that i needed to restart with command r pressed and repair the harddrive, so I am doing that now

Rroskey wrote:

I miss read the mb-gb.

Easy to do -- you're not the first. 😉

Still isnt 174 gigs a bit large for system files?

Yup, unless something has gone wrong.

I turned off time capsule and it was large before I turned it off, and I got 30 gigs back from it.

That's interesting. The Storage display showee zero for backups. So either Spotlight wasn't caught up, or the Spotlight index is damaged, or the directory damage is causing spurious readings.

I did a disk verify and it said that the harddrive was corrupted and that i needed to restart with command r pressed and repair the harddrive, so I am doing that now

Good. That may explain it. If not, continue with the other things in the article. Don't skip any of them.

Ok here is mine. I have no idea what is going on I have deleted most of my video and mail files to no avail. Also My HD is 250 GB but omni disk sweeper is saying 36.3 GB. What is up and how do i fix it? Please help me.