Why Activity Monitor and Finder's Get Info gave different info?

[su0301]

I checked my disk usage using activity monitor and finder's get info. Surprisingly, they gave totally different results: activity monitor indicates 128g of free space, whereas finder's get info indicates 375g. Finder's results seem to be consistent with my expectations.

Screenshots are attached. Is this a bug in activity monitor or I missed something? I use rMBP with mountain lion installed.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Maybe those are local Time Machine backups?

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating up my space? by theSeb

To find out, where you hard drive capacity is being used, you can use the following free applications:

• DiskInventory X
• OmniDiskSweeper
• JDisk Report
• GrandPerspective

Maybe try a combination of several, if you still can't find the "missing" capacity.

 

[su0301]

Maybe those are local Time Machine backups?

What is this "Other" in the storage tab? What is eating up my space? by theSeb

To find out, where you hard drive capacity is being used, you can use the following free applications:

• DiskInventory X
• OmniDiskSweeper
• JDisk Report
• GrandPerspective

Maybe try a combination of several, if you still can't find the "missing" capacity.

i use NAS for time machine. But yesterday the system sent a message saying that it verified the time machine backup and needed to discard all history of backups. Then I allowed it to redo the time machine backup with all history discarded. However, I never allowed time machine to use local disk to do backup ... could it do this without my permission?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

i use NAS for time machine. But yesterday the system sent a message saying that it verified the time machine backup and needed to discard all history of backups. Then I allowed it to redo the time machine backup with all history discarded. However, I never allowed time machine to use local disk to do backup ... could it do this without my permission?

As you have Lion or Mountain Lion, local backups are nothing you can configure (visually), but are done so by the system itself. Once you reconnect to your external backup disk, the local backups get copied to the external disk and the local backups get deleted. The first link I provided can help you find out.

The applications can be of use, if you are missing storage capacity.

 

[su0301]

As you have Lion or Mountain Lion, local backups are nothing you can configure (visually), but are done so by the system itself. Once you reconnect to your external backup disk, the local backups get copied to the external disk and the local backups get deleted. The first link I provided can help you find out.

The applications can be of use, if you are missing storage capacity.

Thanks..

 

[katmeef]

As you have Lion or Mountain Lion, local backups are nothing you can configure (visually), but are done so by the system itself. Once you reconnect to your external backup disk, the local backups get copied to the external disk and the local backups get deleted. The first link I provided can help you find out.

The applications can be of use, if you are missing storage capacity.

Pretty sure they do not roll into your external backups, ever. Not in my experience anyways.

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Pretty sure they do not roll into your external backups, ever. Not in my experience anyways.

What do you mean? That there are no local TM backups in Lion or Mountain Lion while not connected to the external drive containing the TM backups, that then get copied over to the external drive with the TM backups once you connect that external drive to your Mac?

I don't use Lion or Mountain Lion or even Time Machine, but from what I have read (countless of threads), that is how Lion and Mountain Lion behaves if one uses Time Machine, thus the first link in post #2.

 

[su0301]

I checked the disk usage status again. The time machine made several successful backups to my NAS today. But the free space indicated in activity monitor remains the similar (i.e., look like time machine does not automatically remove the local backup after it successfully makes backup to the external drive).

The question is: can I use the space occupied by the local time machine backup after I use up all other space? If not, is there a way to remove the local backup?

 

[katmeef]

What do you mean? That there are no local TM backups in Lion or Mountain Lion while not connected to the external drive containing the TM backups, that then get copied over to the external drive with the TM backups once you connect that external drive to your Mac?

I don't use Lion or Mountain Lion or even Time Machine, but from what I have read (countless of threads), that is how Lion and Mountain Lion behaves if one uses Time Machine, thus the first link in post #2.

Local backups don't move to your external drive when you connect it. I've read the same posts as you, but as someone who uses time machine, they certainly do not..

The apple page also says nothing about them moving to your external drive http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4878

It would be nice if they did. But they dont.

Here's another poster complaining about huge amount of local backups on their drive EVEN though they use an external for tm backups https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4130222?start=0&tstart=0