hard disk space disappears and reappears on re-boot

shurid · #1 December 6th, 2008, 06:30 AM

I have a problem with hard disk space that gets eaten up spontaneously. As soon as i reboot, the hard disk space lost is recovered. Sometimes, after reboot I sometimes see that the trash is filled with files, though the trash was empty while shutting down. Any suggestion on how I can solve this problem and recover the lost space without a time consuming reboot ? I use Azeurus- can this P2P be a cause for this problem ?

ElDiabloConCaca · #2 December 6th, 2008, 09:45 AM

How much space do the files in the trash take up? It's possible to have one, large file that takes up hundreds of megabytes, or thousands of small files that only take up a few megabytes.

How much RAM do you have in your system?

shurid · #3 December 6th, 2008, 10:04 AM

hard disk space keeps on getting eaten up gradually until there is none left. I have 2 gigs of RAM, and am using a MacBook 13.3in with DuoCore. Lets say that I have around 2 gigs empty space on my hard disk drive, then it fill up over a period of around 8 hours. I end up having to reboot every day. After the reboot, for a few hours the empty space remains as is, and then space begins disappearing progressively.

ElDiabloConCaca · #4 December 6th, 2008, 10:06 AM

Does space disappear even if you don't run any programs?

shurid · #5 December 6th, 2008, 10:17 AM

i have not observed this, but will try it tonight...

i think that this problem has something to do with the P2P application i have installed (Azeurus).

I'm also going to observe whether the space problem takes place if I do not launch Azeurus. Do you use P2P or Azeurus ? I used to have this problem before I ever installed Azeurus, but I was then using Limewire

**Giaguara** · #6 December 6th, 2008, 12:21 PM

You should have at least 10 % empty space on the hard drive, no matter what size, for it to function correctly, especially for the boot drive. 15 % would be the recommendation.
2 GB can easily fill with caches over time - everything your computer does, typing, browsing, chatting, addressbook, photoshop - anything you do that stays for a while in its memory.
Clean the hard drive to have those 15 % free space - 9 GB if it's a 60 GB HD and so on. If you can't do that, get a bigger hard drive.
With that little empty space, even the maintenance scripts can't run, so the Mac will become more and more sluggish and need reboots to function.
Also get rid of Azereus and other junk applications, and run some proper maintenance to clean additional caches and run daily, monthly and weekly, e.g. with OnyX http://www.titanium.free.fr/pgs/english.html