External SSD Drives not showing correct amount of free space

[garypixel]

I have a Mac Mini M1 with 2 2TB external Samsung SSD Drives. Both are formatted with Journal HFS+. Both drives show the wrong amount of free space, for example: 1 Drive shows 1.1 Tb of space is used. However, if I select all the folders and use cmd+option+I tos how the total size of all selected folders, the totoal size is shown as 10.7 GB.

I have no idea what's going on here ...

 

[Superhai]

What is the expected amount stored? Remember also that the journaling takes up space, also KB/KiB, MB/MiB, GB/GiB, TB/TiB, and also “sectoring” makes files take up more space than their size are, there are million things to consider.

 

[Clix Pix]

You really should have formatted those drives to APFS, which is the current file system used by Apple and has been for the past several versions of the OS. The M1 machines come with Big Sur and APFS right out of the box.

 

[velocityg4]

I have a Mac Mini M1 with 2 2TB external Samsung SSD Drives. Both are formatted with Journal HFS+. Both drives show the wrong amount of free space, for example: 1 Drive shows 1.1 Tb of space is used. However, if I select all the folders and use cmd+option+I tos how the total size of all selected folders, the totoal size is shown as 10.7 GB.

I have no idea what's going on here ...

Try showing hidden folders. Then check those.

Command - Shift - .

 

[AppleB]

I just got a Samsung EVO 870 SSD 1TB formatted APFS. 81.5 GB used 918.82 GB available. M1 Mac Mini 16/1TB

 

[garypixel]

What is the expected amount stored? Remember also that the journaling takes up space, also KB/KiB, MB/MiB, GB/GiB, TB/TiB, and also “sectoring” makes files take up more space than their size are, there are million things to consider.

That’s true but there’s a big difference. As I wrote, on one drive I look at the information and it says 1.1tb in use. But if I select all the folders and check the information it says only 10gb

 

[garypixel]

Try showing hidden folders. Then check those.

Command - Shift - .

Thanks I have all hidden folder already shown though

 

[garypixel]

You really should have formatted those drives to APFS, which is the current file system used by Apple and has been for the past several versions of the OS. The M1 machines come with Big Sur and APFS right out of the box.

Thanks . Yea that’s what I was thinking to. That could be the problem. Sad that some doesn’t say anything about that though

 

[oregondean]

Select the disk in Disk Utility and you may see APFS snapshots. These are usually backups from some utility like Carbon Copy Cloner. Select them all and click the "-" to delete them. These snapshots do not show up as hidden files.

 

[BaggieBoy]

As above, may be snapshots. I had the same issue as store Music and Tv libraries on external SSD, I noticed over time space wasn't getting returned after deleting media files. Used a utility from the App Store call "Disk Space Analyzer" and it was clearly show snapshots I wasn't aware of. In my case they were being created by Carbon Copy Cloner. I reconfigured CCC to not create snapshots for the external drives and the space was returned.

 

[Fishrrman]

Click on the desktop to be "in the finder".

Click ONE time on the external drive in question to select it.

Then, invoke the "get info" box (type "command-i").

THAT will give you an accurate estimation of how much "free space" is on the drive.

I have NEVER trusted or relied upon the "Storage" tab in the "about this Mac" menu option.

 

[pvalar]

Select the disk in Disk Utility and you may see APFS snapshots. These are usually backups from some utility like Carbon Copy Cloner. Select them all and click the "-" to delete them. These snapshots do not show up as hidden files.

Top notch answer mate, thank you. I've got a 4TB SSD for archival purposes and it was clearly out of whack with the free disk space information beneath the icon, compared to what I'd actually used.

I use CCC and now the snapshots are gone, which has made a much more sensible information line under the icon.

Thanks again.


Pete.