Disk space decreases to 0, but returns on restart

[michaericalribo]

When I restart my laptop, I have 30GB of hard disk space left.

Over the course of several hours, the available space reported by Finder reduces to 0.

When I restart, the free space returns.

As an example: I saw my available hard disk space was at 21.1MB, so I restarted my computer. At 9:54am Finder reported 31.74GB available. Now, at 10:35am, Finder reports 19.78GB available. I have not downloaded any new files.

I have emptied my trash, and I have used disk profilers (System Report and Disk Inventory X) to find large files to remove.

Can anyone help figure out why this is happening?

 

[michaericalribo]

It appears this may be related to Spotlight: https://apple.stackexchange.com/que...at-evoke-insane-mds-stores-disk-read-activity

I am reindexing with several folders disabled, and already Finder reports 57GB.

I have encountered mds using a lot of CPU before, what's the status of this problem?

 

[Fishrrman]

My "broken record" advice:
Permanently disable spotlight.
Use "EasyFind" and "Find Any File" to do your searching instead...

 

[DJKillerKeemstar]

When I restart my laptop, I have 30GB of hard disk space left.

Over the course of several hours, the available space reported by Finder reduces to 0.

When I restart, the free space returns.

As an example: I saw my available hard disk space was at 21.1MB, so I restarted my computer. At 9:54am Finder reported 31.74GB available. Now, at 10:35am, Finder reports 19.78GB available. I have not downloaded any new files.

I have emptied my trash, and I have used disk profilers (System Report and Disk Inventory X) to find large files to remove.

Can anyone help figure out why this is happening?

It could possibly be time machine doing automatic system backups. I believe that time machine keeps 24 hour backups locally on the machine and holds the data on there until you back up to an external disk or turn off automatic backups. If you are using time machine I would disable automatic backups and restart to see if the problem is solved.