Hard Drive almost full, but almost no files on drive

[Bahamut Eos]

Hey having an issue with OSX 10.9.2 which I'm using as a server. Someone else set up this system for me, and I maintain it. But we can't figure out what's going on.

A screen shot is worth a 1000 words. Please see the photo.

As you can see, I can only see less than 50GBs of flies, but the drive reports that there is only 8 GB left available.

I deleted the log files using Mac Help Mate, and got about 30 GBs back, but there its still over 900GBs unaccounted for on the drive.

I'm trying to make a super duper backup of the drive now to see if the problem follows it to a copy. Anyone else have any ideas what could be using up these extra space? The system is being used as a file server to about 7 very large raids. (40TBs plus each) so I figure it's going to be some kind of log files but not sure where to look on the system for them.

Thanks!

 

[Bahamut Eos]

Ok, a few more clues.

1. The super duper clone I made was small, and didn't include all of the blank files. This may be a work around for me, I could just boot the backup (Assuming my computer will start from it, haven't tried it yet, can't test until after hours) and then backup my backup back to the main drive to clear the space out. Might have to do it ever 6 months or so though. Not ideal.

2. Using grand perspective, the drives shows almost 900GBs of "Miscellaneous used Space". It doesn't show me a file path for any of this. terminal command du -h doesn't show any large directories either. (went through the list slowly but didn't come up with anything.)

 

[velocityg4]

Perhaps there is some process with a memory leak loading up the virtual memory. I've seen that happen with an HP Laserjet and an unfinished print job in the queue. It was using over 800GB which went away after a reboot and slowly started building up again. The solution was to cancel the print job.

 

[mrichmon]

terminal command du -h doesn't show any large directories either. (went through the list slowly but didn't come up with anything.)

The command "du -m / | sort -n" might be more useful. This shows the count as the number of MB sized blocks, starting from the root of the boot hard-drive and then sorts the output.

This makes it easier identify the large folders. Using du from "/" may help identify how much space is used by log files.

Your image suggests that you have Final Cut Pro installed. Final Cut may have generated a lot of large temporary files.

It might be worthwhile to check the root folder for hidden folders.

 

[DrNeroCF]

Empty trash, reboot? You could try showing all hidden files and checking the sizes of those. Even if something's in the trash it'll show up in finder when you're revealing hidden files.

 

[Bahamut Eos]

Ok, thanks for the advice. First off I should have pointed out that restarting has not help fix the issue and the trash is empty. As a mater of fact I noticed this issue after a restart, and my computer wouldn't boot. That's when I loaded the computer from another drive, and noticed the hard-drive was full. I was able to clear out some space, and the computer would restart normally again, but the drive still was acting totally full. (Being that it is a server it is hard to restart as I have to do it when it's not being use and we use it like, 20 hours a day.)

velocityg4

No printer drivers are install on this computer. I'll keep this in mind though. Thanks!


mrrichmon

Oo, thank's for the new terminal command. I tried it out, but what I got was a ton of du: /filepath/filepathetc: Permission denied I tried enabling root user though directory utility, same deal. (Also after I enabled root user it wouldn't let me go to any of the permission denied file paths.)

Not sure if this is because I need to somehow sign in first before using this command, or if this is a symptom. du - h still seems to work. Although it's posable I'm missing a large folder as it does come up with way too much info.

Good eye on the Final Cut Pro thing. However this computer does not have FCP installed, although it does server a lot of computers that do. Now that you point out that there is a FCP_005 user on this drive, I have to say it's is a little weird, I don't know why it's there. I altered permissions to allow my main user to check out the contents and there really weren't any files in there though.

DrNeroCF

I think my next step is going to be to reveal hidden files. using this guide. http://ianlunn.co.uk/articles/quickly-showhide-hidden-files-mac-os-x-mavericks/
Because I need to relaunch the finder, I'm going to have to wait until after hours though. Hopefuly that will at least reveal where the huge files are. Then I may check in with people of those files can be safely deleted.

Thanks, let me know if you have any other ideas!

 

[Weaselboy]

Oo, thank's for the new terminal command. I tried it out, but what I got was a ton of du: /filepath/filepathetc: Permission denied.

sudo du -d 1 -x -c -g /

Try this command. That will give you base folders with space used in GB including hidden folders.

Do you happen to have Time Machine turned on.

 

[Dr.Jones]

Maybe files in /Volumes?

Finally a question I might have an answer for! I am Reading in this forum for years, but could Never be of any help. Just consuming! Maybe until now!

I had a similar Problem on my old MacPro. I use this One as a Desktop-Computer with an external TimeMachine Drive connected to an eSATA port. On a regular base I do have the message, That One drive did not unmount properly before going to sleep.
So when I had the problem with my SSD running out of space, I finally figured out, that in my /Volumes Folder I had several Folders called TimeMachine1 up to TimeMachine5. When looking with ls -ahl it did not tell me the correct size, because I wasn't the owner of the folders! (Do not know how, because I am the only One Using the MacPro)
After deleting those folders using "sudo rm (I am not completely sure which switches, but maybe someone else can Jump in here)" everything was fine.
I am not shure whether you are using an external TimeMachine, but maybe the problem exists also with other external drives, like your RAID's!
Hope this was helpfull. Otherwise sorry for the disturbance.