Available Disk Space Incorrect

Question

Level 1

21 points

Available Disk Space Incorrect

I hav a 500 GB internal hard drive on my Mac Book Pro running Lion.

In any Finder window or "get info" on my hard drive, it says I have 465 GB available (only 34 GB actually used).

In Disk Utility, it says I only have 121 GB available and 379 used.

When I "calculate all sizes" of the folders in the root directory, it's less than 280 GB, so there must be 100 GB of hidden files somewhere.

I also suspect that these hidden files are taking up a lot of space on my Time Machine.

Yes, I've already run disk utility, repaired disk, emptied trash, restarted, etc. but something weird is going on.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.3), iPad, iPhone 4, BlackBook, iPod

Posted on May 14, 2012 3:53 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

May 14, 2012 4:50 PM in response to TonyInSF

“You may notice a difference in available space statistics between Disk Utility, Finder, and Get Info inspectors. This is expected and can be safely ignored. The Finder displays the available space on the disk without accounting for the local snapshots, because local snapshots will surrender their disk space if needed."

OS X Lion: About Time Machine's "local snapshots" on portable Macs

Reply