Resolved Storage Question

[Blujelly]

Morning all,

In a attempt to free of a load of space in the attempt to help speed up my MBP in anyway. I deleted all my films that my MBP was currently holding. Obviously as I can just stream them from the cloud to my Apple TV or any iOS device i thought for the meantime i might as well do this.

I noticed that before i had something like 270Gb of films and 20Gb of backup?

Now i have deleted all the movies its seems them data has swapped positions, I know that there is about 20Gb of films left, which i am halving on here, but I'm not sure how i've gained 203.11Gb of backups. Also i gained a lot of 'other' data.

I use the app disk doctor once a week when I'm doing all backup's for iOS devices and TM, and that isn't even finding a figure close to 100gb. Now i know Disk Doctor won't find 100gb but i would have thought it could clear a smalls section of it?

Any ideas on this one? Or any recommendations on how to clear the 'other' data.

Thanks


*EDIT* just logged on to my other halfs account and used Disk Doctor, it has cleared 6.1Gb. Still not massive amounts but I thought Disk Docotor checked both accounts.

 

[AFEPPL]

Stupid question - but you emptied the trash??

 

[Blujelly]

Stupid question - but you emptied the trash??

haha yes i have, Disk Doctor also automatically clears it once i scan.

 

[Weaselboy]

Any ideas on this one? Or any recommendations on how to clear the 'other' data.

What is happening here is you have Time Machine turned on and that Backups space is space used for Time Machine's local snapshots. When you delete files, they don't really get deleted, but rather they get moved to that hidden local snapshots folder at /.MobileBackups. Totally normal. As the drive approaches 80% full, the OS will start to delete those local snapshots files. Or if you like, you can just turn Time Machine off briefly then turn it back on and that local snapshots space will be erased.

As far as Other. That Other readout has been completely screwed up in Yosemite and El Capitan and is always off, so I would just ignore it. What happens is the Spotlight index gets corrupted and makes that readout wrong. You can reindex Spotlight with the command below in Terminal and it may fix it for a while. Give it time to reindex, it can take 30 minutes or so.

sudo mdutil -E /

 

[chabig]

In a attempt to free of a load of space in the attempt to help speed up my MBP in anyway.

Just FYI. deleting files won't make your Mac any faster.

 

[JTToft]

Just FYI. deleting files won't make your Mac any faster.

- On a full platter disk, oh yes, it will. Those will come to a crawl (even more than before) when they approach their capacity.

 

[AFEPPL]

Performance is decreased depending where the data is on the platters.

 

[Blujelly]

What is happening here is you have Time Machine turned on and that Backups space is space used for Time Machine's local snapshots. When you delete files, they don't really get deleted, but rather they get moved to that hidden local snapshots folder at /.MobileBackups. Totally normal. As the drive approaches 80% full, the OS will start to delete those local snapshots files. Or if you like, you can just turn Time Machine off briefly then turn it back on and that local snapshots space will be erased.

As far as Other. That Other readout has been completely screwed up in Yosemite and El Capitan and is always off, so I would just ignore it. What happens is the Spotlight index gets corrupted and makes that readout wrong. You can reindex Spotlight with the command below in Terminal and it may fix it for a while. Give it time to reindex, it can take 30 minutes or so.

sudo mdutil -E /

Thanks for the help on this, i don't normally keep my external drive in all the time. I will literally TM backup once a week over the weekend, do you reckon that backup reading is also incorrect like the 'other' data?

Just FYI. deleting files won't make your Mac any faster.

I would have thought deleting near on 300Gb of films towards the back end end of a HD would have helped a little?

 

[Weaselboy]

Thanks for the help on this, i don't normally keep my external drive in all the time. I will literally TM backup once a week over the weekend, do you reckon that backup reading is also incorrect like the 'other' data?

Whether you backup often or not, that local snapshots space still accumulates.

Run the command below in Terminal and it will show you the size of the local snapshots folder so we can compare to what that storage graphic is showing.

sudo du -hs /.MobileBackups

 

[JTToft]

Run the command below in Terminal and it will show you the size of the local snapshots folder so we can compare to what that storage graphic is showing.

sudo du -hs /.MobileBackups

- I apologise for getting slightly off track here. But I've been looking for a way to tell if local snapshots are enabled on a given machine. If the ".MobileBackups" folder doesn't exist, does that mean they are not enabled or merely that there currently aren't any snapshots?

 

[joe-h2o]

I'm also looking to determine that, for example, my Late 2012 iMac on El Cap does not have that folder, but it does have a permanently attached Time Machine drive via USB.

Are local snapshots only stored on laptops, or on machines that backup to TM via network?

 

[Weaselboy]

- I apologise for getting slightly off track here. But I've been looking for a way to tell if local snapshots are enabled on a given machine. If the ".MobileBackups" folder doesn't exist, does that mean they are not enabled or merely that there currently aren't any snapshots?

If you have Time Machine turned on, there will always be a /.MobileBackups folder. Even if you have just turned on TM it will create that folder.

I'm also looking to determine that, for example, my Late 2012 iMac on El Cap does not have that folder, but it does have a permanently attached Time Machine drive via USB.

Are local snapshots only stored on laptops, or on machines that backup to TM via network?

That folder will exist on any Mac that has Time Machine turned on. It is a hidden folder you normally cannot see.

Click the Desktop then hit shift-command-g (all three keys at once) and enter /.MobileBackups in the box and hit return and you will see the folder. Don't muck about in there though, because you will break things.

There is a Terminal command that can disable the local backups, but if you have not that, the folder will be there.

 

[JTToft]

Are local snapshots only stored on laptops, or on machines that backup to TM via network?

- Local snapshots are for portable computers only, since it's assumed a desktop machine will always have access to its Time Machine drive. A laptop may not.

If you have Time Machine turned on, there will always be a /.MobileBackups folder. Even if you have just turned on TM it will create that folder.

There is a Terminal command that can disable the local backups, but if you have not that, the folder will be there.

- Thanks, Weaselboy. However, you seem to have contradicted yourself slightly in the above two quotes. Is the folder always there (so long as TM is enabled), or is it there only if one hasn't disabled local snapshots using "sudo tmutil disablelocal". That's the whole reason I'm asking. I disabled the feature a long long while ago on a previous version of OS X, but would like to confirm that it's still disabled.

 

[Blujelly]

Whether you backup often or not, that local snapshots space still accumulates.

Run the command below in Terminal and it will show you the size of the local snapshots folder so we can compare to what that storage graphic is showing.

sudo du -hs /.MobileBackups

See attached, i have no idea what i'm looking at here, hopefully you can make some sense of it


*EDIT* I turned of TM logged off both users, shutdown the MBP and started again and *backups* has gone but has now been replaced withe even more *other* (picture 2)

Should i run this command again:

sudo mdutil -E /

If the indexing doesn't help would i just have to take it on the chin that, its the upgrade to El Capitan that has done it...

 

[joe-h2o]

If you have Time Machine turned on, there will always be a /.MobileBackups folder. Even if you have just turned on TM it will create that folder.



That folder will exist on any Mac that has Time Machine turned on. It is a hidden folder you normally cannot see.

Click the Desktop then hit shift-command-g (all three keys at once) and enter /.MobileBackups in the box and hit return and you will see the folder. Don't muck about in there though, because you will break things.

There is a Terminal command that can disable the local backups, but if you have not that, the folder will be there.

I'm not sure that's the case on El Cap. I definitely have TM running. I should have specified I am familiar with the terminal and know about hidden folders. /.MobileBackups is not a folder that exists in my root folder. >

Leviathan:/ joe$ ls -al
total 69
drwxr-xr-x  34 root  wheel  1224 20 Jan 22:28 .
drwxr-xr-x  34 root  wheel  1224 20 Jan 22:28 ..
-rw-rw-r--   1 root  admin  6148 31 Jan 01:41 .DS_Store
d--x--x--x   9 root  wheel   306 20 Jan 22:26 .DocumentRevisions-V100
drwx------   5 joe   staff   170 21 Dec  2012 .Spotlight-V100
d-wx-wx-wt   2 root  wheel    68  1 Jul  2015 .Trashes
-rw-r--r--@  1 joe   staff   303 16 Apr  2015 .apdisk
-rw-r--r--@  1 joe   staff     0 21 Dec  2012 .com.apple.timemachine.donotpresent
srwxrwxrwx   1 root  wheel     0 20 Jan 22:28 .dbfseventsd
----------   1 root  admin     0 16 Sep 04:00 .file
drwx------  91 root  wheel  3094 31 Jan 14:22 .fseventsd
drwxr-xr-x@  2 root  wheel    68 20 Jan 22:15 .vol
drwxrwxr-x+ 95 root  admin  3230 31 Jan 02:04 Applications
drwxrwxr-x   8 root  admin   272  1 Jul  2015 Incompatible Software
drwxr-xr-x+ 65 root  wheel  2210 20 Jan 22:19 Library
drwxr-xr-x@  2 root  wheel    68 20 Jan 22:15 Network
drwxr-xr-x@  4 root  wheel   136 20 Jan 22:11 System
drwxr-xr-x   6 root  admin   204 20 Jan 22:15 Users
drwxrwxrwt@  8 root  admin   272 31 Jan 14:31 Volumes
drwxr-xr-x@ 39 root  wheel  1326 14 Jan 02:05 bin
drwxrwxr-t@  2 root  admin    68 20 Jan 22:15 cores
dr-xr-xr-x   3 root  wheel  4469 20 Jan 22:25 dev
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 root  wheel    11 20 Jan 22:14 etc -> private/etc
dr-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     1 20 Jan 22:26 home
-rw-r--r--@  1 root  wheel   313  1 Aug  2015 installer.failurerequests
dr-xr-xr-x   2 root  wheel     1 20 Jan 22:26 net
drwxr-xr-x@  4 root  wheel   136 22 Oct  2013 opt
drwxr-xr-x@  7 root  wheel   238 20 Jan 22:19 private
drwxr-xr-x@ 59 root  wheel  2006 20 Jan 22:14 sbin
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 root  wheel    11 20 Jan 22:14 tmp -> private/tmp
drwxr-xr-x@ 12 root  wheel   408 20 Jan 22:14 usr
lrwxr-xr-x@  1 root  wheel    11 20 Jan 22:14 var -> private/var
Leviathan:/ joe$

 

[Weaselboy]

- Thanks, Weaselboy. However, you seem to have contradicted yourself slightly in the above two quotes. Is the folder always there (so long as TM is enabled), or is it there only if one hasn't disabled local snapshots using "sudo tmutil disablelocal". That's the whole reason I'm asking. I disabled the feature a long long while ago on a previous version of OS X, but would like to confirm that it's still disabled.

The bolded part.

If you ran "sudo tmutil disable local" it will stay disabled unless you turn TM off then on again, then it will be enabled again and you would need run the command again to turn it off.

See attached, i have no idea what i'm looking at here, hopefully you can make some sense of it


*EDIT* I turned of TM logged off both users, shutdown the MBP and started again and *backups* has gone but has now been replaced withe even more *other* (picture 2)

Should i run this command again:

sudo mdutil -E /

If the indexing doesn't help would i just have to take it on the chin that, its the upgrade to El Capitan that has done it...

Ignoring the categories for the moment, it looks like you freed up over 150GB of space there, so I think you are good. You can try reindexing Spotlight again to see if it helps, but like I said, that thing is hopelessly messed up on both Yosemite and El Capitan, so I would not worry about it. If the total space used sounds about right, I would just not sweat this any more.

I'm not sure that's the case on El Cap. I definitely have TM running. I should have specified I am familiar with the terminal and know about hidden folders. /.MobileBackups is not a folder that exists in my root folder.

This is because you are on an iMac. Local snapshots are only used on Mac portables. I should have mentioned that earlier.

 

[JTToft]

The bolded part.

If you ran "sudo tmutil disable local" it will stay disabled unless you turn TM off then on again, then it will be enabled again and you would need run the command again to turn it off.

- Thanks.

that thing is hopelessly messed up on both Yosemite and El Capitan

- Definitely agreed on it being messed up! It's a pretty well irrelevant gauge.

 

[joe-h2o]

This is because you are on an iMac. Local snapshots are only used on Mac portables. I should have mentioned that earlier.

That was my question in the original comment.

 

[Weaselboy]

That was my question in the original comment.

Yes, I already said I should have mentioned that before, and it is pretty obvious I overlooked the fact your are not on a Mac portable. So I'm not clear on the purpose of this post.

 

[joe-h2o]

Yes, I already said I should have mentioned that before, and it is pretty obvious I overlooked the fact your are not on a Mac portable. So I'm not clear on the purpose of this post.

Right, so I was just confirming, because in your first comment you stated that if TM is on that folder always exists (which it clearly doesn't) and then went into a semi-patronising explanation of hidden folders because you assumed I just opened Finder to look for it and thus still didn't actually answer my original question.

 

[Weaselboy]

Right, so I was just confirming, because in your first comment you stated that if TM is on that folder always exists (which it clearly doesn't) and then went into a semi-patronising explanation of hidden folders because you assumed I just opened Finder to look for it and thus still didn't actually answer my original question.

Ah I see... so you just want to argue. I've already said twice I was mistaken, so no need get your shorts all bunched up.

 

[joe-h2o]

Ah I see... so you just want to argue. I've already said twice I was mistaken, so no need get your shorts all bunched up.

No, I don't want to argue, I just wanted an answer - you didn't actually confirm until post 16, but it was directly contradicting the answer you gave me in post 12 so I wanted to point out that my original question stated iMac Late 2012 running El Cap and whether it was specifically different for desktops.

 

[Weaselboy]

No, I don't want to argue, I just wanted an answer - you didn't actually confirm until post 16, but it was directly contradicting the answer you gave me in post 12 so I wanted to point out that my original question stated iMac Late 2012 running El Cap and whether it was specifically different for desktops.

If I told you a third time that I made a mistake, would that make you happy?

 

[simonsi]

See attached, i have no idea what i'm looking at here, hopefully you can make some sense of it

Just a thought but if your drive really is only approx 50% full then you will see zero appreciable speed increase as a result of deleting files. You will only see any noticeable difference if the HDD is nearly full and the system slows down as it no longer has access to freely available space for temp cache and swap file type uses.

 

[Blujelly]

Ignoring the categories for the moment, it looks like you freed up over 150GB of space there, so I think you are good. You can try reindexing Spotlight again to see if it helps, but like I said, that thing is hopelessly messed up on both Yosemite and El Capitan, so I would not worry about it. If the total space used sounds about right, I would just not sweat this any more.

Yeah space wise seems correct, good to see quite a bit clearer off.

Just a thought but if your drive really is only approx 50% full then you will see zero appreciable speed increase as a result of deleting files. You will only see any noticeable difference if the HDD is nearly full and the system slows down as it no longer has access to freely available space for temp cache and swap file type uses.

Since it has been cleaned up and to a degree indexed correctly speed has increased not massively, but diffidently noticeable.


Thanks for all the help everyone