SSD reporting incorrect amount of free space, not due to local snapshots
-
28-09-2020 - |
Question
I recently created a file of just over 20GB and then deleted it shortly after, however my free space did not increase at all. I am using a 2012 MacBook Air with a 128GB SSD and I've had problems before with inaccurate free disk space (even when accounting for Time Machine's Local Snapshots). Usually though I can fix the problem by verifying the disk in disk utility, which then shows Invalid volume free block count
and orphaned blocks
errors, which I could then repair in recovery mode, but now disk utility repeatedly insists the volume is OK, and its S.M.A.R.T. status is verified.
I suppose I will have to just reformat the drive, reinstall OS X and restore from my backups, but is there anything else I can try first? Also, since this has happened a few times before (mainly when I delete a large amount of space in one go), should I suspect the SSD of having problems, in spite of its verified S.M.A.R.T. status?
UPDATE: I initially thought there was a 26.2 GB discrepancy. Interestingly though, whilst System Information reports that backups are taking up 12.65 GB, sudo du -csh /.MobileBackups
gives 31 GB. In total, this adds up to 94 GB of used space, which still amounts to a 7 GB discrepancy which I can't account for.
Solution
Ok, so after posting this question I had some major breakthroughs, most of which are posted in the update to my question. By then remembering that du
still reports in units of 1024 whilst OS X now uses 1000, the final 7 GB was accounted for (well, there's still a potential 500 MB missing judging by Disk Utility, but that's probably just an artefact of du
counting in blocks). Now the only question left is why System Information is reporting a substantially lower value for Backups than it should be, and whether or not it will remember to eventually clean up the other 18 GB of local snapshots.
OTHER TIPS
Try using Grand Perspective to see exactly what's on your disk.