Sometimes computer users stress too much about disk usage. They worry when they see varying amount of free and used space and their computers and when they notice those numbers change even though they haven't done anything. Find out what Mac OS X does that uses disk space on a regular basis.
Comments: 2 Responses to “MacMost Now 578: Don’t Stress About Disk Use”
Michael Wun
13 years ago
Related issue in relation to disk usage, based on experience with ITunes and Time Machine.
I believe dIsk space becomes an issue, if you want to back up from Time Machine.
I think you need enough spare disk space to allow for two copies of the files you intend to back up. I think this has something to do with "non destructive" writing to a disk.
Ie fully write on a new version of the files onto the disk, before deleting the old corrupted files from the disk.
Hence you should strive for no more than 50% disk usage.
Right or wrong comment?
Means that you should always strive to have no more than 50% usage
I don't believe that is true. Even if it were, you wouldn't need 50% of your disk free, unless every single file on your drive was modified since the last backup. For instance, if you have 200GB being backed up, but only 1GB had changed since the previous backup, one hour ago, then you would just need 1GB of free space to back that up, and afterwards TM would clear out old files to make more room.
Related issue in relation to disk usage, based on experience with ITunes and Time Machine.
I believe dIsk space becomes an issue, if you want to back up from Time Machine.
I think you need enough spare disk space to allow for two copies of the files you intend to back up. I think this has something to do with "non destructive" writing to a disk.
Ie fully write on a new version of the files onto the disk, before deleting the old corrupted files from the disk.
Hence you should strive for no more than 50% disk usage.
Right or wrong comment?
Means that you should always strive to have no more than 50% usage
I don't believe that is true. Even if it were, you wouldn't need 50% of your disk free, unless every single file on your drive was modified since the last backup. For instance, if you have 200GB being backed up, but only 1GB had changed since the previous backup, one hour ago, then you would just need 1GB of free space to back that up, and afterwards TM would clear out old files to make more room.