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Internal Hard Drive Troubles: Double the Size

Hey!


So I'm having troubles with my internal 250g hard drive on my Mac Pro (late 2013). My hard keeps filling up with mysterious "other" files, that I can't locate anywhere. This happened before, and I used Disk Doctor to clean it up, which worked wonderfully! However a couple weeks later it's back to double the size that it should be, and growing. I tried to use Disk Doctor again, but it didn't help this time.


The "other files" are taking up 121g of room, and this keeps growing.


Here's what I've tried already:

> Disk Doctor (as I stated above)

> Bitdefender Virus Scanner (free version), and Anti Virus Sentinel Pro, because I thought perhaps it was a virus. Both came back clean.

> Revealing all invisible files in the finder, and going through everything with Disk Inventory. These results were interesting. They said that only 90g (approx) where being used. Still when I use About This Mac, it says there is only 72g free (almost double what it should be!). This continues to grow.


Right now I'm at a complete loss. I figure it must be something with the drive itself, and I need to take the tower in. Before I do that I thought I would ask here to see if there is anything I haven't tried.


Thanks,

Alicia

Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.2), (late 2013)

Posted on Apr 7, 2015 1:25 PM

Reply
2 replies

Apr 7, 2015 1:34 PM in response to A.Suko

For information about the Other category in the Storage display, see this support article. If the display seems to be inaccurate, try rebuilding the Spotlight index.

Empty the Trash if you haven't already done so. If you use iPhoto, empty its internal Trash first:

iPhoto ▹ Empty Trash

Do the same in other applications, such as Aperture, that have an internal Trash feature. Then restart the computer. That will temporarily free up some space.

See this support article for some simple ways to free up storage space.

You can more effectively use a tool such as OmniDiskSweeper (ODS) or GrandPerspective (GP) to explore the volume and find out what's taking up the space. You can also delete files with it, but don't do that unless you're sure that you know what you're deleting and that all data is safely backed up. That means you have multiple backups, not just one. Note that ODS only works with OS X 10.8 or later. If you're running an older OS version, use GP.

Deleting files inside a photo or iTunes library will corrupt the library. Changes to such a library must be made from within the application that created it. The same goes for Mail files.

Proceed further only if the problem isn't solved by the above steps.

ODS or GP can't see the whole filesystem when you run it just by double-clicking; it only sees files that you have permission to read. To see everything, you have to run it as root.

Back up all data now.

Install the app in the Applications folder as usual. Quit it if it's running.

Triple-click anywhere in the corresponding line of text below on this page to select it, then copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

For ODS:

security execute-with-privileges /A*/OmniDiskSweeper.app/*/M*/* 2>&-

For GP:

security execute-with-privileges /A*/GrandPerspective.app/*/M*/* 2>&-

Launch the built-in Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad and start typing the name.

Paste into the Terminal window by pressing command-V. You'll be prompted for your login password.

The application window will open behind other open windows. When you scan a volume, the window will eventually show all files in all folders, sorted by size. It may take a few minutes for the app to finish scanning.

I don't recommend that you make a habit of doing this. Don't delete anything as root. If something needs to be deleted, make sure you know what it is and how it got there, and then delete it by other, safer, means. When in doubt, leave it alone or ask for guidance.

When you're done with the app, quit it and also quit Terminal.

Apr 7, 2015 2:54 PM in response to Linc Davis

Thank you Linc!


I used ODS, it turned up the same results as before, but when I gave it permission I was able to find the problem. There was almost 95g of space being used in Private>Var>root>Library>Logs> by PDApp. In just one day 64g were logged. I looked it up and they are connected to my Adobe program, I'm assuming my Creative Cloud. I'm currently looking into figuring out the exact problem before I delete anything, as you suggested.


Thank you so much for responding so quickly, and helping me solve what the problem was! <:)

Internal Hard Drive Troubles: Double the Size

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