Storage Space Disappeared afte Burning Multiple Discs

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Level 1

9 points

Storage Space Disappeared afte Burning Multiple Discs

I'm running Yosemite (10.10.5) on a 15" MacBook Pro with Retina Display (MBP). Over the past four days, I've burned roughly ¾ of a Terabyte of assorted files (mainly photos) onto DVDs and CDs using a USB 3.0 external reader/burner (Pioneer BDR-XD06S).

I would copy a folder of files from a (failing) Seagate 2TB external hard drive onto the MBP, burn the required number of DVDs or CDs, then copy the original folder from the MBP onto a new Fantom 3TB external hard drive and delete it from the MBP. I would also delete any "untitled DVD" folder that was created... and yet after burning the first couple of discs, each time the file deletion completed there would be less storage space available on the MBP than before. Now the MBP claims it has only 99.58GB of storage available -- even accounting for all the new files I've transferred onto the MBP from my camera, my iPhone update, etc. etc. that number is at least 45-50 GB too low!

Disk Utility says everything's OK, but I'm increasingly nervous about the magically disappearing storage. This is my first Mac with solid-state storage instead of a classic hard drive, so I don't know what to think -- has anyone else experienced this problem, and if so how did you recover the lost storage space?

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Feb 8, 2016 9:51 PM

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Answer 1

babowa

Level 9

78,097 points

Feb 8, 2016 10:45 PM in response to BSL59

What app did you use to burn the DVDs?

And, did you only burn data disks or video disks (movies/videos/slideshows)?

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Answer 2

BSL59 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 9, 2016 11:37 AM in response to babowa

No separate app for burning -- just OS X. I did what I've always done, simply inserted a blank disc in the (now-external) drive, dragged the files or folders I wanted to burn onto it, opened its window and clicked the "Burn" button in the upper right corner. I gave each disc a name and Yosemite took over. The files were all JPEG, MOV, or MP4 format, ranging from about 50K to a couple of MOVs that were around 200MB. (None of this is anything new on any of my older Macs or MacBook Pros; I've just never seen storage space "go away" like this before.)

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Answer 3

Eric Root

Level 10

684,015 points

Feb 10, 2016 5:38 PM in response to BSL59

Try re-indexing Spotlight.

Spotlight – Re-index

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Answer 4

BSL59 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 10, 2016 5:39 PM in response to Eric Root

Gave it a shot, I recovered roughly 1GB of space... about half of which disappeared at the next restart. Thanks anyway!

I'm going to see if DiskWarrior can figure something out as soon as I've finished going through all the cache folders I can get my paws on.

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Answer 5

Eric Root

Level 10

684,015 points

Feb 11, 2016 2:18 PM in response to BSL59

Another possibility.

Local Snapshots - About Mavericks

Local Snapshots on Portable Macs

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Answer 6

BSL59 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 11, 2016 2:23 PM in response to Eric Root

Eric - Thanks! It hadn't occurred to me that Time Machine might be wreaking some sort of storage havoc. Unfortunately, as useful as this (new to me) information is, it did NOT solve the problem... And it's getting worse. Over the past few hours I've added about 5MB of new smallish files while deleting close to a full Gigabyte of images and MP3s -- and throughout have watched the available storage space go DOWN. When using your trick, I discovered that I now have 242.1GB of "Other" files in storage, so now I'm going to try to figure out what "Other" files I have.

Thanks again, even though you didn't solve my problem you gave me some really helpful information!

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Answer 7

Eric Root

Level 10

684,015 points

Feb 12, 2016 11:35 AM in response to BSL59

You are welcome. Try OmniDisk Sweeper to see if you can find the files.

Disk Space Filling Up – OmniDiskSweeper

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Answer 8

BSL59 Author

Level 1

9 points

Feb 24, 2016 1:38 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks, Eric. I haven't actually tried ODS yet, but will likely give it a shot in the future. For what it's worth -- and I'd be interested in hearing from anyone experiencing similar weirdness -- the problem fixed itself. On the morning of the 13th, about 15GB of storage space mysteriously reappeared; on the morning of the 14th, I was back up to about 170GB available, and by that evening -- just using the laptop normally, doing nothing specifically related to the original problem -- the available storage was right back up to where it should have been. Since then, the numbers have remained pretty much where I expect them to be, based on file adds/deletions/syncs/etc.

I'm wondering if there's some kind of latency effect when burning that many gigabytes of data & deleting the burn folders...? (Not a critical question, but sure would be interesting to know!)

Thanks again to all who tried to help!

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