the available capacity of my hard disk is constantly decreasing- i can tell from the info window of my hd, but i am not aware of any downloads happening, all p2p apps are closed, messages are not incoming etc....what could be downloading and how do i tell?
MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.1)
You are running torrents? Your p2p apps are "closed" - that means the window is closed; it usually does not mean that the application is quit (File > Quit or Command + Q) which stops any processes. Is file sharing turned on?
Those are my initial thoughts - I won't let me machines anywhere near any torrents, so I can't give detailed help on that.
thanks for your reply.
im mac savvy enough to know the difference between a window closed and the app quit. all apps are quit (except for safari with just this window open.
half an hour ago, my available space on my primary (and only) drive was 0.5gb, this leapt up to 1.54gb 15 mins later and is now down to 1.28gb....oh, not its at 1.24.....
weird huh?
No weird at all, if you do not keep at least 10% of your HD free you are working on producing a major crash. The OS is using the drive as well. 1.24 GB free from what 500GB???
If you have Time Machine on then it's probably local snapshots.
Regards,
Captfred
The other responses you've gotten are spot on: you need a minimum of 10 - 15% of available hard drive space free at all times for the OS to operate properly and if your laptop is not attached to a Time Machine drive, it could be local snapshots (backups being done on the internal drive until hooked up to a TM drive). So, you need to get some of your files off your hard drive as quickly as possible and make sure any process to do with torrents is turned off as well as check into TM.
cool. thanks for that folks 😉
My $.02
I made a CarbonCopyClone *bootable* backup, based on recommendations given in this forum. This allows me to boot my system into an alternate disk, in case your primary boot disk fails.
In your case, "failure" can also be defined as "too little disk space left".
You may want to get a self-powered external disk that is larger than (perhaps 2x your primary disk) to act as a "bootable" alternate in case your primary ever fills up and fails to boot.
That will give you *something* bootable to clean up your primary disk.
You may also consider upgradng your internal drive as well, but implementing an external bootable clone is faster and solves your IMMEDIATE risk of your system disk deciding not to boot.
what is downloading in the background?
