150GB unaccounted for on 360GB drive

Question

150GB unaccounted for on 360GB drive

I have a Macbook Pro running Mountain Lion (10.8.2). A Finder window says there is about 280GB free. However

Activity Monitor says there's about 130GB free. A reboot doesn't change these numbers.

If I bring up About This Mac - More Info - Storage, it tells me that something called "Backups" are using 147.75GB.

I have tried using Disk Inventory X but it's not finding any large files that account for this.

Can some help me understand what's using this space and (more important) how to get rid of it?

TIA

MacBook Pro 15, Mac OS X (10.7.2)

Posted on Jan 31, 2013 6:28 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

shldr2thewheel

Level 7

26,003 points

Jan 31, 2013 9:18 PM in response to PeterORiordan

they are local snapshots: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878

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Answer 2

Jan 31, 2013 9:21 PM in response to shldr2thewheel

Thanks. I just found that one can execute the command "sudo tmutil disablelocal" to wipe out this file

(I'm reinitializing this Mac and so don't need 150GB of backup data ;-)) Executing "sudo tmutil enablelocal"

restarts the local snapshost but from a size of zero.

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Answer 3

Jan 31, 2013 9:24 PM in response to PeterORiordan

I was aware of that and have done this myself, however every time I post that solution, a certain member of this forum always says it is not necessary because they delete themselves over time.

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