Backups taking up storage space

Question

Level 1

18 points

Backups taking up storage space

Hi

I have an 20-inch Intel (Mid 2007) iMac with an external drive - I recently checked the storage in the About This Mac section and found that there is 663.48GB being used as "backup" (see screen grab below) despite not ever having used TimeMachine! Can anyone please let me know how to reclaim this disk space? I have read a lot of posts on this subject but none seem to bear any relation to my specific issue. Hope you can help!

Regards

Alan

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Sep 16, 2012 11:08 AM

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Answer 1

RRFS

Level 5

4,522 points

Sep 16, 2012 11:35 AM in response to The End

Have you looked at the files on the drive to see what they are? Post some of the filenames so we get a better idea of what they might be.

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Answer 2

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Sep 16, 2012 11:41 AM in response to The End

See Pondini's TM FAQs for starters and search for local snapshots and such.

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Answer 3

Allan Jones

Level 9

68,990 points

Sep 16, 2012 11:45 AM in response to The End

The WD MyBook, especially if not the special "Mac Edition" probably came with and installed third-party backup software. Launch Activity Monitor (Applications > Utilities) and see if a process with "mimeo" is in the active process list. To find it, you'll probably need to change AM's default "Show" seeting from teh defaulte of "My Processes" to "All Processes.' Not sure about 10.7 but, in 10.6, the "show" option is in the top part of the AM window:

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Answer 4

baltwo

Level 9

62,362 points

Sep 16, 2012 12:04 PM in response to Allan Jones

If, as Allan noted, that has the dumb SmartWare installed, erase and reformat it. Then, if it's your TM backup HD, redo the TM backup.

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Answer 5

The End Author

Level 1

18 points

Sep 16, 2012 1:56 PM in response to RRFS

Hi RRFS

Thank you for your reply - unfortunately I cannot locate where the "backups" are. Any ideas where they might be or what file name I should look out for?

Many thanks

Alan

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Answer 6

The End Author

Level 1

18 points

Sep 16, 2012 1:58 PM in response to Allan Jones

Many thanks Allan,

There was WD software installed but this stopped working recently - it actually crashes out at start up. But I will double check to see if there's anything else installed.

Regards

Alan

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Answer 7

RRFS

Level 5

4,522 points

Sep 16, 2012 2:02 PM in response to The End

Do you have a way to remove your movies and audio so you can erase/format the drive?

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Answer 8

den.thed

Level 9

77,404 points

Sep 16, 2012 2:44 PM in response to The End

If it were me, I'd get another 500 GB External HD and move the iTunes Library off the 250 GB Internal to the 500 GB drive. Then have the current 1T to backup both the 250 GB Internal and 500 GB External iTunes using Time Machine.

see > iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

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