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what is taking up hard drive space?

hello.

I have a power mac (pre intel) quad core desktop running 10.5.8.

I have noticed it being very sluggish lately.

From taking 5 minutes to boot up, to browsers taking longer to launch(with the color wheel spinning longer until the browser is fully ready), to inputing text into fields in a browser window(the text gets entered a second or two after typing). Even when I open a finder window, the icons for every file, as well as the size listing of each file/folder will take like 10 seconds to start loading one at a time. I never noticed that before.


So I opened disk utility, and noticed that I have filled up 160GB out of the 233GB that this hard drive has. That seemed like a really high number.

So I added up the total size of the home folders in all 4 users on this computer, and they add up to 27GB. The system folder is 4 gigs, and the main Library folder at the top level is 51 gigs. I don't think there is anything left. That adds up to 82GBs. Where is the other 78GBs coming from?

I know I'm missing something, but I can't figure out what.


Even still, I don't know that this is the reason for my computer to act sluggish, but now I'm curious how I'm filling up so much hard drive space.


Any thoughts on finding this info out, and/or fixing the sluggish issue?


Thanks!!

PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.5.8), quad core

Posted on Sep 21, 2011 11:25 PM

Reply
79 replies

Oct 3, 2011 3:38 PM in response to MadMacs0

guys, this has gotten to a level a little over my head.

I really don't know what i'm doing with this jumper stuff, nor do i understand it.

My WD drive did not come with jumper shunts, or whatever they're called.


The pdf I just read (thanks MadMacs) says:


WD SATA hard drives are factory set for workstation/desktop use.


That tells me that it's fine out of the box, because I'm using it for "desktop" use.

Plus, it works great when the old drive is in the other bay.


I'm just done trying to diagnose this thing.

I do appreciate everyone's help!!!!!!


Im putting both drives back in.

It works better than ever that way.

And i have sooooo much work to do, that i'm behind on.


If the old drive slowly kills the new drive, then I'll buy a new one.

I'll be sure to backup more often.


Guys, thank for the help.

The computer runs better than ever with this new drive.

I guess it just has to work together with the old drive.


Thanks again. The computer is flyin right now!

what is taking up hard drive space?

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