vanishing hard drive space

Posted:
in Genius Bar edited January 2014
Ok, I have a Mac, running 10.3.9, 1.25 gig mem. I have vanishing hard drive space, Filemaker Server 5.5 is running, done restart, repair premissions, etc. Any help is much appreciated.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 10
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,326moderator
    http://www.id-design.com/software/whatsize/



    That program will map out where all your space is going.
  • Reply 2 of 10
    Thank you, I have been kinda "tossed" into keeping all the computers running and am "winging" my way. I'll try the program today.
  • Reply 3 of 10
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    Do you have Adobe CS2 installed?



    Have you checked the drive in Disk Utility? Does it make any mention of 'Illegal Name' or 'Unrecoverable Error'?
  • Reply 4 of 10
    Don't have CS installed, only "running" program is Filemaker Server 5.5, things were running along with 10 gig for about a year, all of a sudden t went to 77? megs of HD space, I have moved some things and got it to 60 gig on Friday, today it sits at 56 gig. The "former" computer person is facing serious trouble, he was caught "entering the premises via cyberspace" All help is very much appreciated!
  • Reply 5 of 10
    no errors I can find
  • Reply 6 of 10
    messiahmessiah Posts: 1,689member
    If you go to Disk Utility, is the total capacity of the drive reported correctly?
  • Reply 7 of 10
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Download OmniDiskSweeper. While not graphical, I find it much easier to use if I have a hunch to begin with where the space is going.



    Peek at:



    /var/vm If this is huge, then you have a memory leak in some application (likely FileMaker Server), and it's slowly but surely eating memory. Reboot, and it'll get cleared out.



    /Library/Logs If this is big, then you've got a process that is having fits and spewing log messages. These would have to be deleted by hand... after you see which program it is having problems, that is.



    Also make sure that you run Software Update (in the Apple Menu) and get any security updates in there.
  • Reply 8 of 10
    ok, I I had lost a couple GB sometime during the night, the only thing that runs is Fiilemaker Server 5.5. I checked all the log files and cleared some old ones that were there, none were huge, as for the memory leak in Filemaker, a reboot doesn't bring back the lost space.

    Now the numbers are as follows:

    Total Capacity 111.8 GB

    Available 71.93 GB

    Used 39.8 GB



    1.25 Power PC G$, just over a GB of ram



    As for Filemaker the total size of the records is: 4.80 GB, the largest single record is 1.57 GB.



    I am thinking of moving Filemaker off the "main" hard drive onto an external firewire to see if the vanishing space shows up there.



    Or taking a big hammer to it all and just telling the owner that I'm bi-polar!!!!
  • Reply 9 of 10
    kickahakickaha Posts: 8,760member
    Or, you could download any of the tools suggested and *SEE* where the space is going...
  • Reply 10 of 10
    I did the What Size, only big thing I have is the Filemaker database, and only trouble is it is not growing at the rate the space vanishes in one night last week I lost 4 gb, I shut down everything I could today and will look tomorrow to see if any space is missing, I do know Filemaker does a backup and I wonder if it maybe needs to be reinstalled.
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