hard drive space

D

dj nubisco

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Hi, I have a 15' macbook pro 250 gb HD 2 gb mem. And in the activity monitor it is showing space utilized 228.53 gb and free space at 4.04 gb...? And i have only had the laptop for less than 2 years now... Is this normal? Is there a way to erase items so i have alot more free space? i also have an portable external hard...320 gb i use to back up my hard drive...will this save my music and important items so i can erase items(music, ect..) off of hard drive??? then when i need those items just plug the portable hard drive in...? I really need my music for i am a dj... what should i do?


thanks Dj Nubisco
 
dj nubisco said:
Hi, I have a 15' macbook pro 250 gb HD 2 gb mem. And in the activity monitor it is showing space utilized 228.53 gb and free space at 4.04 gb...? And i have only had the laptop for less than 2 years now... Is this normal? Is there a way to erase items so i have alot more free space? i also have an portable external hard...320 gb i use to back up my hard drive...will this save my music and important items so i can erase items(music, ect..) off of hard drive??? then when i need those items just plug the portable hard drive in...? I really need my music for i am a dj... what should i do?


thanks Dj Nubisco
Click to expand...

Take a look at this utility. It will tell you what all your storage space is used for. Since you're a DJ I'm guessing it's music. If that's the case I recommend keeping all your music on an external drive.
 
dj nubisco said:
Hi, I have a 15' macbook pro 250 gb HD 2 gb mem. And in the activity monitor it is showing space utilized 228.53 gb and free space at 4.04 gb...? And i have only had the laptop for less than 2 years now... Is this normal?
Click to expand...

Did all of your hard drive space disappear overnight, or have you filled up your hard drive gradually over time? (I've known users to have their hard drive fill up suddenly due to a log or application that has gotten out of control and filled up their drive with log messages or other files.)

You can free up about a gigabyte of hard drive space quickly and easily by deleting language localization files for languages you don't speak, using:

Monollngual (free)
http://monolingual.sourceforge.net/

This is all that I recommend Monolingual for. Monolingual will also allow you to remove PowerPC code, which I strongly recommend that you DO NOT do.

You may also want to clear your logs and cache files using:

YASU (Free, Donation requested.)
http://jimmitchelldesign.com/projects/yasu/

If doing so makes a big difference, you have a problem that we should work out, as it will re-occur and get worse.
 
While Randy Singer's suggestion to remove some parts of applications is true, I wouldn't recommend it for two reasons: if you install an app and then make part of it disappear, strange things can happen to it. You don't want to potentially damage your applications' architectures to gain 1 gig, especially on your main machine.

However, the bigger issue is that, as we have assumed so far, your hard disk is full of music. You're a professional DJ. Ergo, you will increase your music collection over time, right? Since the trend line shows that your hard disk will get full over time anyway, you should really consider investing in extra storage space.

I would suggest you try this free app to show you where your space is going: http://grandperspectiv.sourceforge.net/ The boxes show directories, so if 90% of your hard drive is ~/Music then, bingo…

More generally and for other readers: you might net a gig tonight by, say, emptying your caches, but unless you disable caching in all the applications that use it, they will just fill up again with normal use and you'll be left with the same problem in a week. And caches are a good thing, anyway. You need a long-term solution.

My 6¢
 
michaelsanford said:
While Randy Singer's suggestion to remove some parts of applications is true, I wouldn't recommend it for two reasons: if you install an app and then make part of it disappear, strange things can happen to it.
Click to expand...

Agreed -- case in point, Microsoft Office 2008. Any usage of Monolingual or modifications to the Office applications themselves will cause incremental updates (like the 12.1.7 update) to fail.

By saving yourself a few hundred megabytes with Microsoft Office, you have just lost the ability to apply potentially critical updates to the suite.
 
I haven't suggested that anyone remove any "parts of applications." Only language localization files that are entirely unneeded if you don't speak that language. The language localization files that Monolingual removes will not detrimentally effect Microsoft Office or its updaters. (I've removed my own language localization files, and I've had no trouble updating Office.)

My suggestion to clear caches and logs was not meant to be a solution for your disk space problem, but rather a diagnostic aid. If clearing your caches and logs frees up a huge amount of space, it is likely that you are suffering from a log file or cache that is out of control.

I agree that if you have filled your drive up slowly over time, and that is why it is now full, that you do indeed need a new hard drive.

I can see that any effort to assist you is going to be undermined by your resident "experts." I will, therefore, withdraw. Good luck.
 
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