Fresh install and basic HTPC apps using 300GB of hard drive space!

[NoLimePlease]

Hello guys.
I have just done a clean installation of High Sierra on my Mini. I Wiped the drive before installing the OS, and it came out clean on first boot. I then started installing my favorite home theater software: Kodi w/no limits build, Bit Torrent, Popcorn Time, iStat Menus, and IP Vanish. I then went to back up the installation before adding any media using Time Machine on a usb hdd, only to find that my internal 500GB SSD drive was nearing 300gb used space! I thought it was very strange to be using so much space on my OS SSD, but I figured oh well and backed it up anyways. After coming back to the backup this morning I come to find out the Time Machine back up has only used 18gb of space on the external hard drive.
Does anyone know why the fresh install with the apps took up so much space on my drive?
And why the Time Machine backup took so little space?
Thanks for the help!

Mac Mini late 2011
8GB ram
i5 1.4ghz
500gb SSD

 

[Bart Kela]

That is highly suspicious.

I have three systems running High Sierra and none of them have an OS + applications that are above 50GB.

I have a four-year old MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD that is about half full. I have some tools, etc. on that machine, but if I remove what my user account directory contains, it's about 44GB.

I also have a 2010 Mac mini and again if I remove my user account directory, I am using 44GB as well. Those two systems have developer tools plus some source trees and a bunch of miscellaneous crap that has accumulated over the years (like Desktop Pictures).

My third system is a brand-new MacBook that I installed from scratch. The operating system and various apps total 29GB. This latter machine has no development tools nor source trees.

Apple themselves claim that High Sierra requires 14.3GB to upgrade from Sierra. That would be the base OS with no apps.

My guess is that one or more of your third-party apps is severely hogging up disk space.

 

[NoLimePlease]

That is highly suspicious.

I have three systems running High Sierra and none of them have an OS + applications that are above 50GB.

I have a four-year old MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD that is about half full. I have some tools, etc. on that machine, but if I remove what my user account directory contains, it's about 44GB.

I also have a 2010 Mac mini and again if I remove my user account directory, I am using 44GB as well. Those two systems have developer tools plus some source trees and a bunch of miscellaneous crap that has accumulated over the years (like Desktop Pictures).

My third system is a brand-new MacBook that I installed from scratch. The operating system and various apps total 29GB. This latter machine has no development tools nor source trees.

Apple themselves claim that High Sierra requires 14.3GB to upgrade from Sierra. That would be the base OS with no apps.

My guess is that one or more of your third-party apps is severely hogging up disk space.

 

[Bart Kela]

OK, here is a snapshot from the Storage section of About My Mac on my 2017 MacBook and its 500 GB SSD.

As you can see, the operating system is using 16.31 GB. The blue section are apps, about 10.15 GB, combined for about 26.5 GB. The ten largest apps (including iMovie, Affinity Photo, the iWork apps, a few web browsers, etc.) are using about 6.8 GB of those 10.15 GB (you can see this if you click the "Manage..." button).

The lavender section are documents, about 22.5 GB which includes a 21 GB virtual machine drive file. My system is using just over 50 GB for everything.

 

[NoLimePlease]

Sounds like my machine definitely is bloated. What I don’t understand is why it is bloated after a clean install. Do you know of a way to see what is taking all of the space? I’ve checked disk storage” and “all my files”, and the biggest consumer is just called “System”.

 

[Bart Kela]

Not sure.

It's possible that one or more of your third-party apps is generating or caching data that the About My Mac utility is seeing as the operating system.

It's possible that one or more of your apps is malware and is doing something nefarious to your system.

It's possible that one or more of your apps is poorly written and not flushing out caches correctly.

My suggestion if for you to restart from scratch (erase boot drive, reinstall operating system). Check disk usage, it should be about 15-18 GB, almost entirely the operating system and the base applications (Mail, Safari, Notes, Calendar, Address Book, etc.) before you start installing anything (like iTunes, the iWork suite, GarageBand, etc.).

Then slowly add third-party apps one at a time and observe disk usage for a day after each app install. Maybe make Time Machine backups between app installs. At some point, you will likely find the culprit.

Of the apps you listed, I used IP Vanish for a year and it was not a disk space hog. I'd install that first. I have no experience with the other apps you mentioned.

 

[netwalker]

Does anyone know why the fresh install with the apps took up so much space on my drive?

Might be TimeMachine local snapshots. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015.

And otherwise just analyze what takes how much space on your machine. No guessing needed.

 

[Bart Kela]

Might be TimeMachine local snapshots. See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204015.

Those should show up as a different colored bar in "About My Mac" and be clearly identified as Backups.

 

[Fishrrman]

I'll bet that Time Machine and iCloud storage (if you're using it) have a lot to do with this.
Also... if you use "hibernation mode"... the "sleep image" as well.

I don't use ANY of that stuff...