Eclectic Memes

Okay, I know it’s not spring yet, but you get the idea. I was fed up with running with only 10GB or so free disk space and I don’t want to void my support contract by replacing the existing 250GB hard-drive with a larger one (I have a pre-2009 Macbook Pro and replacing the hard-drive involves more serious surgery than I am willing to attempt while it’s still within the 3 year support contract).

There are many ways to examine your hard drive to identify where it’s all being used up. In my case I pretty much knew which directories where eating up all the space, but out of curiosity as much as anything else I tried a couple of disk analysers.

The first was OmniDiskSweeper, a free utility from the OmniGroup (the same people who make the spectacularly good OmniGraffle diagramming tool, and the ever-useful task management tool OmniFocus).

OmniDiskSweeper is simple and efficient. It scans your disk, reporting the total space assigned to each folder. Folder sizes are totalled so that it is relatively each to see which folders contain the most material.

The weakness of OmniDiskSweeper is that is it possible to miss large files that could be removed if they are buried in among other large files. The lack of a broad overview means these files can be overlooked.

This is not a weakness shared by the second disk analyser I used, the beautiful (and useful) DaisyDisk (free unrestricted demo with a nag screen, or $19.95). The reason for the apparently odd name of this tool becomes clear when you see the analysis display.

It looks vaguely flower like and I assume ‘Daisy’ was chosen for it alliterative quality.

DaisyDisk performs the same task as OmniDiskSweeper. It scans the selected drive, noting each files size and totalling each directory’s content. Where DaisyDisk wins out it in this flower-like display. It is a simple matter to see where file space is being used and spotting large files or directories among all the other clutter is simple, just look for the larger coloured segments. The colour coding provides easy identification of the sort of space (differentiating Library, User, Applications, and System files, among others). Hovering the mouse over one of the coloured segments provides specific details of actual size, path and for folders a breakdown of the largest constituent files and folders it contains.

Need a closer look at a specific folder? No problem, double click the relevant coloured segment and the display focusses on that folder. The makes examining deep folder structures with many smaller files much more comfortable.

Well worth a look if you want to figure out what is eating up your disk space.

The result of all this investigation is confirmation of my previous suspicions and so I have just archived three large folders containing media for the training course I produced last year (a grand total of 60GB of data). Add to this the removal of temporary render files used by Final Cut and my previously 10GB or so of free space has expanded to a comparatively capacious 91.2GB.

Anyway, long story short. With the archive and cleanup complete it provides a bit of breathing space and let me get on with producing some more media projects I have in mind.

The next time I’m in an Apple store I’ll ask about the possibility of dropping in the 500GB clone drive. If they can do this under the support contract I’ll definitely take that option as it will mean less messing around archiving data (and inevitably restoring it the next time I need to work on the files).