what is storage "other" and how big should it be?

Pondini, you seem very knowledgable - perhaps you can help me.

like various others on here, when i click on 'about this mac', 'more info' and 'storage', i see a very large amount (c200GB) described as 'other'.

i can't reconcile this amount with what i have on the disk.

i have been through the options in 'where has my disk space gone?' (eg delete trash) to no avail.

at first i thought it might be due to 'local backups' from time machine, though i have followed the instructions to turn these off and there has been no change.....as yet.

i have downloaded whatsize and it has identified 195,579 duplicate files (!!). it's going to take an hour for this process to complete.

am i on the right lines or missing something obvious?

the reason this causes a problem - 'about my mac' says i have 169gb out of 500gb free. that means i am 'using' 330GB. this prevents me doing a time machine backup to a disk that holds only 250GB

yet i think i only have a small fraction of this: movies of 60GB, music of 45GB, photos of 20GB.

i have noticed that my machine has been running slightly slower recently.

jonfromengland wrote:

. . .

i have been through the options in 'where has my disk space gone?' (eg delete trash) to no avail.

All of them?

at first i thought it might be due to 'local backups' from time machine, though i have followed the instructions to turn these off and there has been no change.....as yet.

No, as mentioned, there's a separate Backups category for them.

i have downloaded whatsize and it has identified 195,579 duplicate files (!!). it's going to take an hour for this process to complete.

am i on the right lines or missing something obvious?

I'm not sure why you started by looking for duplicates, but that depends on what you have on your Mac. Are you sure you did everything in Where did my Disk Space go? That sounds suspiciously like there was a problem with a backup or restore, creating a "false volume," per the blue box there.

The WhatSize display, in "As Admin" mode, should give you a pretty good idea where your data is. Have you had it "measure" your internal HD, per the green box in the link? The first column is arranged by size, so should show what folders are taking up the most space. Click on the little triangle to the right of the large ones to see what's inside.

yet i think i only have a small fraction of this: movies of 60GB, music of 45GB, photos of 20GB.

That's 125 GB right there -- plus OSX, your apps, documents, etc., so your TM disk is probably a bit small anyway. When you get the space sorted out, see Time Machine - Frequently Asked Question #1.

this is what whatsize shows - does this shed any light on it?

i can't see the little trinagle to which you refer but i'm probably being dumb

Click the Browser icon in the toolbar.

Then you'll see a window like this one inWhere did my Disk Space go?

Thanks, have done. This is what i get. How on earth does this add up to 30GB?

*330GB

(the problems that consuming ale during england football matches has...)

Have you done a Verify Disk (not permissions) on your internal HD, per #6 in Using Disk Utility?

Pondini, you little genius.

You da man.

High fives from olde London town.

I guess you missed that in the yellow box in Where did my Disk Space go? (too much ale?)

Anyhow, glad it's sorted out! 🙂

Pondini

It’s just possible that you could save my life (again).

You might recall that you sorted the back up/storage issue that I had, which allowed me to do a back up…which proved very handy as my laptop was subsequently stolen.

Well now I have a similar (and kind of related) issue. Once again, my system is showing the incorrect storage, once again this is stopping me from doing a back up, once again I am completely incapable of fixing it.

I think the problem has arisen because I did a restore of music (itunes) and videos from my old time machine backup and it might have confused the system as to how much storage is in use.

Can you help?

jonfromengland wrote:

. . .

my system is showing the incorrect storage, once again this is stopping me from doing a back up, once again I am completely incapable of fixing it.

I think the problem has arisen because I did a restore of music (itunes) and videos from my old time machine backup and it might have confused the system as to how much storage is in use.

I don't quite understand what's preventing a backup, unless your Time Machine drive is too small, but that's not the main problem here.

According to the WhatSize screen, your 500 GB internal HD has 351 GB used, 147 GB available.

Of that 351 used, 112 is in your home folder. It shows 41 GB in your Dropbox folder, which seems high, but not enormous.

The other screenshot you sent separately, of the internal HD, is more clear:

It shows the similar 353 GB used in the sidebar, but only 130 GB accounted-for in the toolbar at the top. Since it does show being run in "As Admin" mode, the 130 GB includes all other user accounts and hidden files and folders.

That sounds like a directory problem on your internal HD. Try verifying it, per #6 in Using Disk Utility. If that shows problems, as I suspect it will, you'll have to start from another source, such as your Recovery HD, to fix it, per the yellow box there.

thanks for your reply.

actually when i click on 'verfiy disk' the response i get is that it is ok.

however when i click on verify disk permissions i get a series of error messages as shown below:

Jon

jonfromengland wrote:

thanks for your reply.

actually when i click on 'verfiy disk' the response i get is that it is ok.

That's quite odd. 😟

Now that I look more closely at the screenprint for your internal HD, I notice some oddities:

It shows zeros for .fseventsd (the hidden log of changes that OSX keeps on each disk/partition).

It shows zeros for .DocumentRevisions-V100, the Versions database. If you've used any apps that support AutoSave and Versions, there should be something there -- probably not much, but something.

And it shows zeros for .MobileBackups. If you have Time Machine on, there should be something there.

It also doesn't have the number of folders next to the disclosure arrows.

What version of WhatSize do you have (5.2.1 is current)?

Try a Restart and remeasure your internal HD. See if there's a significant change.

however when i click on verify disk permissions i get a series of error messages as shown below:

Permissions issues won't cause the problem you're having. I can't read the ones in the screenshot (you need to widen the window), but most can be ignored anyway, per http://support.apple.com/kb/TS1448

Another possibliity--

You must either change to "As Admin" mode when WhatSize first starts up, or remeasure after doing that. Otherwise, you'll still see the "As User" version.

If you have Time Machine on, there should be something there.

Time machine hasn't run yet to do a backup from this machine (partly because the hard drive i have isn't big enough to contain the erroneous capacity that is showing), though i did a partial backup from an old time machine backup of this macbook's predecessor, which was stolen from me during a burglary.

What version of WhatSize do you have (5.2.1 is current)?

5.2.1