Do I have enough disk space for Yosemite?

Question

Do I have enough disk space for Yosemite?

I'm wondering whether to upgrade to Yosemite.

I have a Macbook Air

I don't know if I have enough disk space.

I don't know what all the 'Other' is and why there is so much!

Anyway, if Yosemite needs "8 GB or more of available disk space" I'm wondering if that will leave me enough space to use it? I heard somewhere you need at least 8GB of disk space free in order to prevent things from getting slow.

Any advice

MacBook Air, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), 11 inch

Posted on Jul 3, 2015 7:33 AM

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Answer 1

KiltedTim

Level 10

229,224 points

Jul 3, 2015 7:49 AM in response to emotionalbuggage

'Other' is simply files that spotlight hasn't been able to categorize into one of the other buckets. Re-indexing spotlight may help identify some of that for you.

As far as whether you have 'enough' disk space... yes. Technically, you do. RAM might be another issue. Yosemite performs pretty well in 4GB if you have an SSD (which you do). If you only have 2GB of RAM, however, it's going to bog down pretty quickly.

If you do have 4GB and decide to upgrade, keep a close eye on disk space. If it fills up, you have a significant problem on your hands.

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Answer 2

Cerebro

Level 3

571 points

Jul 3, 2015 9:06 AM in response to KiltedTim

You do have enough disk space to install Yosemite (barely). The question is, do you have enough disk space for it to perform well? A good rule of thumb to follow is that you should, always, keep at least 10% of your drive capacity free for optimal performance. Less space leads to sluggish performance and other problems. Your're down to, around, 20%, now. I'd look into determining what is constituting the "Other" on your drive and, perhaps, offload some stuff to another volume to free up space. If your hard drive is upgradable, then I would, highly, recommend replacing it with a much larger one. 60 GB isn't a lot of real estate to work with. You'll, probably, find that any space you can clear out, now, won't stay empty for very long.

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Answer 3

Csound1

Level 9

60,063 points

Jul 3, 2015 9:08 AM in response to Cerebro

Cerebro wrote:

You do have enough disk space to install Yosemite (barely). The question is, do you have enough disk space for it to perform well? A good rule of thumb to follow is that you should, always, keep at least 10% of your drive capacity free for optimal performance.

10% is far more than required, 10GB is more accurate.

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Answer 4

Jul 3, 2015 11:01 PM in response to Cerebro

You're right.

I keep trying to clear space but then it's hard to keep it clear. I keep having to do some spring cleaning to try and keep enough space free on the disk.

When I bought this machine, I thought 60GB would be enough; I only use it for internet and Pages really. I don't store photos or videos or anything like that.

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