Mysterious doubling of used HD space?

iposteriposter
Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
I just noticed today that sometime this week my used HD space doubled for some unknown reason. I have compared the directory sizes to my most recent CCC clone, and they match. But when I get Info on the HD, it says the used HD space is exactly double what it should be? The only new things I have done in the last couple of weeks is being using CCC to make a backup of my Hd on a FW drive, and install PithHelmet.



I have run all scripts with Cocktail, and the HD utility does not show any problems either. I'm using a 1 GHz iMac with stock 80gb HDD. Any suggestions?

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    slugheadslughead Posts: 1,169member
    Search for all files bigger than 200mb. You should find these weird files named something like "501" that are of unknown origin that take up like 2GB each.



    Delete those.



    Happens all the time to me.
  • Reply 2 of 4
    hirohiro Posts: 2,663member
    If the FW drive was not correctly unmounted it would leave space eating info in the /Volumes directory. Take a look there and see if you see your latest FW drive changes mirrored. /Volumes is a hidden directory so you will need something like Tinkertool or knowedge of the command line.



    If it is just a backup on the FW drive you should be able to delete FW drive leftovers in the /Volumes folder without fear of loosing that data. Don't muck about with other things in there though unless you really know what you are doing.
  • Reply 3 of 4
    curiousuburbcuriousuburb Posts: 3,325member
    FileVault will gorge itself on drive space as it encrypts and hides data.



    Aside from still being quirky and potentially borking your data permanently, it is perhaps best known for surreptitiously consuming vast tracts of HD space behind the scenes.



    Make sure FileVault is off. Still not ready for prime time/regular humans.
  • Reply 4 of 4
    iposteriposter Posts: 1,560member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by Hiro

    If the FW drive was not correctly unmounted it would leave space eating info in the /Volumes directory. Take a look there and see if you see your latest FW drive changes mirrored. /Volumes is a hidden directory so you will need something like Tinkertool or knowedge of the command line.



    If it is just a backup on the FW drive you should be able to delete FW drive leftovers in the /Volumes folder without fear of loosing that data. Don't muck about with other things in there though unless you really know what you are doing.



    Thanks, looks like that was it! Deleted the extra FW drive directory. How do extra copies like that happen? I have not 'ejected' the drive since installing it, I leave it on 24/7. We did have a power 'blink' the other day, but both my iMac and the FW drive are on an UPS.
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