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Mystery files clogging up my boot drive!

I just got a message that my startup disk is nearly full. That was a surprise. When I did a "get info" on the four folders on the drive, Applications, Users, System and Library, the amount of space used adds up to about 75 GB. But when I do a "get info" on the boot drive that houses those folders, it says 115 GB are used. The boot drive is a 120 GB Mercury Elite, and I store the majority of my pictures, data and music on another internal drive.


How do I figure out where these "mystery files" are that are clogging up my boot drive?

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.2), 24 GB RAM, SSD boot drive

Posted on Apr 8, 2013 2:48 PM

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Posted on Apr 8, 2013 2:58 PM

the proper way to inventory a drive is with OmniDiskSweeper


the way to manage an SSD is to image it, erase the SSD and restore - and use TRIM Enabler.


An SSD needs 20% free so that 75% is "full" and untrimmed blocks are an issue.


You may have some bad files. I found iTunes hanging, it was scanning and I had imported some files from my PC that it literally choked on and didn't know what to do.


A lot of times REAL files will go into ./Volumes when a volume failed to mount and now it things "volume a" is ON the root boot drive and under that folder there now is "volume a-1" instead.


I keep noting on the ssd other than OS and apps and the 3GB (max) of ~/Library home folder, everything else is on traditional WD Black drives.


If you have another boot drive, use it, install TRIM Enabler, use OMNI and repair the drive after you have cloned it somewhere safe. But don't use it.

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Apr 8, 2013 2:58 PM in response to s_w_i_t_t_e_r_s

the proper way to inventory a drive is with OmniDiskSweeper


the way to manage an SSD is to image it, erase the SSD and restore - and use TRIM Enabler.


An SSD needs 20% free so that 75% is "full" and untrimmed blocks are an issue.


You may have some bad files. I found iTunes hanging, it was scanning and I had imported some files from my PC that it literally choked on and didn't know what to do.


A lot of times REAL files will go into ./Volumes when a volume failed to mount and now it things "volume a" is ON the root boot drive and under that folder there now is "volume a-1" instead.


I keep noting on the ssd other than OS and apps and the 3GB (max) of ~/Library home folder, everything else is on traditional WD Black drives.


If you have another boot drive, use it, install TRIM Enabler, use OMNI and repair the drive after you have cloned it somewhere safe. But don't use it.

Apr 8, 2013 3:09 PM in response to The hatter

If you have another boot drive, use it, install TRIM Enabler, use OMNI and repair the drive after you have cloned it somewhere safe. But don't use it.


Sorry, I don't really understand this. I have my main boot drive (120 GB SSD). Then I have a 2 TB HDD with three partitions, one of which is a back-up of the boot drive. I do have a 2 TB 7,200 HDD I'm not really using which I could wipe and clone my boot drive to, but there's no space for it in the enclosure. It would be connected using a Voyager enclosure with eSata.


Given this set-up, what are you suggesting I do?

Apr 8, 2013 3:09 PM in response to s_w_i_t_t_e_r_s

Disable hypernation - useful for laptops


you have far too many page out swap files, increase RAM. My guess is you have 24GB and need 32GB. Is that close or make sense? been running CS6 or something else?


TRIMMING is a feature needed for SSDs to run and "trim" nodes or blocks that are the way an SSD handles writes.


Find TRIM Enabler on www.macupdate.com it is something that improves and enhances and the SSD alone w/o and using its own firmware for background garbage collection alone.

Apr 8, 2013 3:12 PM in response to The hatter

Sorry, a lot of this stuff is completely unfamiliar to me. I don't know what hypernation is or how to disable it, and I have a Mac Pro, not a laptop.


I do have 24 GB of RAM. I use Lightroom 4 a lot, but rarely Photoshop.


I downloaded TRIM Enabler but don't yet understand how to use it, or if it will get rid of that extra 34.6 GB.


Thanks again.

Apr 8, 2013 3:15 PM in response to s_w_i_t_t_e_r_s

Surely you can shrink and create a 160GB partition and you have in the past done both? Or use the partition you have. I like to have "current" or working image, a backup from pre-10.8.3, an image from 10.6.8 etc


use CCC or Disk Utility to make a clone or sparse disk image.


Restore image with ERASE and RESTORE.


In future use Disk Utility and it will see that TRIM is present and DU repair disk will perform a trim operation - you will see output on screen at the end of a repair.


Head to the developer home page for TE.


Hibernation on Bing:

mac os x hibernation


Sure you understand cloning - and my sprained finger I try to ignore or use OMNI for disksweeper


Using Cloning as a Backup Strategy

http://www.apple.com/support/lion/installrecovery/

Create an OS X Lion Install disc

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13727_7-20080989-263/how-to-create-an-os-x-lion-ins tallation-disc


How to clone your system:

http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone-backup.html

http://macperformanceguide.com/Mac-HowToClone.html

http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/7032/carbon-copy-cloner

http://www.macperformanceguide.com/blog/2012/20120711_2-MacPro-internal-clone-ba ckup.html

OmniDiskSweeper

https://www.omnigroup.com/products/omnidisksweeper/

Apr 8, 2013 3:21 PM in response to The hatter

Every use your system image booting a laptop?


Has your system been update over itself from 10.6 to now or were there a point like 10.7 or 10.8 where you did did not and install Mac onto its own fresh drive with nothing else?


Updates over 10.6 don't always work


you should not have hibernation on your system from what I read.


I am sure there is a terminal command to turn it off but I don't know.

Apr 8, 2013 3:22 PM in response to The hatter

I understand how to clone and back up a drive. What I still don't know:


  1. How do I get rid of the extra 34.6 GB in the "volumes" folder that OmniDiskSweeper identified? Is it safe to simply delete all of the files in there? Seems doubtful.
  2. I don't understand the progression of what I'm supposed to do.
    1. First install TRIM Enabler.
    2. Then back up my boot drive.
    3. Restart from the backup.
    4. Erase the original boot drive.
    5. Restore from back-up to the original boot drive.
    6. Restart from boot drive.
    7. In the future, repair disk periodically (??) with DU, and it will perform trim operation?


Is that right?

Apr 8, 2013 3:32 PM in response to s_w_i_t_t_e_r_s

Safe Boot should get rid of swap files and hibernation file.

Do so from another disk drive.

Now that I know you can boot from another drive, and you feel it is current or can be made current great.

Install TRIM on any and every boot drive. Then when you repair your SSD it will perform a TRIM.

And installing on the SSD will insure that wRITES are properly trimmed at the time


Without the hibernation you free up 24GB.

The number of pageouts with more RAM would also help and reduce use and writes to SSD.


You can just boot from WD and install TRIM and repair; then install TRIM on SSD.


I would run DU as a matter of my weekly or bimonthly backup and maintnenace.

I clone and boot from clone t o test it works and repair.


SSD needs to be restored 3-4 times a year? to be safe side and keep it in good shape probably. Even with TRIM Enabler, even more so though without.


I thought maybe you used Target Disk Mode to a MacBook Pro or something.


I'll have to leave that for more tomorrow to understand. And cook and cleanup time for today.


Grant and Linc woudl know how and why.

Mystery files clogging up my boot drive!

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