the mystery of the external drive space

[fisherking]

i have an 'archive' 2TB drive connected to my mac, to store previous work.

the drive info shows 775gb available, and 1.22gb used. but when i add up all the main folders on that drive, i show 584gb used... a significant difference.

any ideas on how to resolve this? i would like to reclaim the actual unused space on that drive. thanx ppl!

5

 

[Bigwaff]

i have an 'archive' 2TB drive connected to my mac, to store previous work.

Is this drive backed up using Time Machine?

 

[fisherking]

Is this drive backed up using Time Machine?

i don't use time machine, i do back it up with carbon copy cloner. on that backup drive, the folders add up to 584gb... (fwiw, the backup is a mirror, not a continuous backup)

EDIT: the invisible folder on the archive drive add up to 2.28gb. all of this is still a long way from 1.22gb used...

 

[macsound1]

My understanding is this has to do with APFS.
Files can be in 2+ folders at the same time and Finder shows that those folders contain the data of those files. But at a disk level, the file only actually exists in 1 place, therefore the actual capacity of the drive will have more free space than if you added up the files or folders.

 

[dsemf]

My understanding is that Disk Utility provides more accurate numbers.

DS

 

[maverick100]

CCC will store snapshots when doing backups. You might check for those.

 

[fisherking]

thanks all. for now, i just moved everything to a new drive, and started a new backup. will keep an eye on it tho...

 

[Fishrrman]

Download DiskWave from here:

DiskWave Homepage

It's small in size and free.

Open DiskWave and go to the preferences.
Put a checkmark in "show invisible files".
Close preferences.

The DiskWave window shows you all your volumes and drives in plain English (no ridiculous graphical formats).
Click on any item "on the left". Give it time to "digest".
Now, look to the right, you'll see what's ON the volume, listed in order of "largest to smallest".
You can easily locate what's eating up your space.

 

[Ben J.]

Download DiskWave from here:

DiskWave Homepage

It's small in size and free.

Open DiskWave and go to the preferences.
Put a checkmark in "show invisible files".
Close preferences.

The DiskWave window shows you all your volumes and drives in plain English (no ridiculous graphical formats).
Click on any item "on the left". Give it time to "digest".
Now, look to the right, you'll see what's ON the volume, listed in order of "largest to smallest".
You can easily locate what's eating up your space.

Firefox gives me an error on the DiskWave link. Says it's unsecure.
I thought I'd check it out, but I've used DaisyDisk for this for years, and I'll just continue to do so. Recommended. Inexpensive and there's a free trial.

 

[fisherking]

Download DiskWave from here:

DiskWave Homepage

It's small in size and free.

Open DiskWave and go to the preferences.
Put a checkmark in "show invisible files".
Close preferences.

The DiskWave window shows you all your volumes and drives in plain English (no ridiculous graphical formats).
Click on any item "on the left". Give it time to "digest".
Now, look to the right, you'll see what's ON the volume, listed in order of "largest to smallest".
You can easily locate what's eating up your space.

command-shift-. (period) shows invisible files, without the need of an app. anyway, looked thru those files, and did not find gigabytes of data

 

[Ben J.]

command-shift-. (period) shows invisible files, without the need of an app. anyway, looked thru those files, and did not find gigabytes of data

The point of apps like Diskwave and Daisydisk is that they display the size of all folders and subfolders, and sorts them by size from large to small, which makes it very easy to find what's taking up space.

 

[Fishrrman]

Ben wrote:
"Firefox gives me an error on the DiskWave link. Says it's unsecure."

I'm not afraid of such warnings. I go places others are afraid to go, and I'm still here.

I've used DiskWave for years.
It's fine.

 

[fisherking]

The point of apps like Diskwave and Daisydisk is that they display the size of all folders and subfolders, and sorts them by size from large to small, which makes it very easy to find what's taking up space.

command-shift-. & 'sort by size'... all in the Finder.

 

[Ben J.]

command-shift-. & 'sort by size'... all in the Finder.

Yes. And cmd-J and click on "Show all sizes" and "Size" and click on that column in the Finder window to sort by file/folder size – every time you open a folder. And after that you have half your folders in Finder sorted by file size, and the Finder calculating folder sizes each time you open them.

…not very practical, is it?

 

[fisherking]

Yes. And cmd-J and click on "Show all sizes" and "Size" and click on that column in the Finder window to sort by file/folder size – every time you open a folder. And after that you have half your folders in Finder sorted by file size, and the Finder calculating folder sizes each time you open them.

…not very practical, is it?

practical? i've done this exactly one time. simple, really...