MBP SSD storage space "missing"

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Hi,

I have a 2010's MBP with a 128GB SSD drive and currently running on Mountain Lion. I stored most of my file in "Documents" which took approx. 14Gb. My music files used about 5Gb and my Applications took up approx. 9Gb. Others folders are quite small (all below 1Gb) so I can safely said I have not more than 30Gb "visible" occupied storage in my 128Gb SSD.

But when I checked the Serial-ATA information in my System Information, it showed my Macintosh HD has a "Capacity" of 120.47Gb (i guess the rest are in the startup and recovery partitions) but only have 13.18Gb of space "Available" despite that I only have about 30Gb data in all files. Did i miss out something and what could have gone wrong?

Please help and thank in advance.

(p/s: I had cleaned up the "Trash" as well as "iPhoto's Trash" [i used iPhoto quite frequently with adding and deleting photos from time to time] but nothing changed.)
 

bobtomay

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Your Mac's Specs
15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
if you really want to know what all is taking space on your drive, I recommend WhatSize.
 
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Just had another look into my system information and found there are 49.44Gb in "Backup" and 35.15Gb in "Others". What and where are these files?

I normally backup once or twice a month using Time Machine on an external hard disk. If this is the case do I still need to store the backup in my MBP's internal storage? If I don't need them, how can I get rid of them?

What about "Others" files? Do i really need them? If not, how can I remove them from my internal storage?

Please help and thanks in advance.
 

bobtomay

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15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
Other is everything that is not in one of the categories listed - incl'g system files, email, documents, etc. - more comprehensive list here.

After you check out Techo91s post on backups, still suggest you get WhatSize if you truly want to keep on top of what is using the space on your drive.

imho, that storage overview is good for nothing except seeing how much space is used vs free, and that's it.
 
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confirmed the 49.44Gb occupied by "Backup" are basically local snapshots of time machine, which when turned on, will capture a snapshot on the system every hour and store in the internal storage. i understand this is good for easy file recovery in case of crashes but the storage is really taxing on my 128Gb SSD drive. so what i did was switch off the time machine and all the local snapshots were automatically removed and freed up the space. i will perform the time machine backup about twice a month using an external hard disk. i don't know is this the right thing to do. another way I have thought of is to switch on the time machine between the backups and turn it off once i performed the backup (to eliminate the local snapshots between 2 backups) and then turn it on again until the next backup.
will appreciate your opinion and thanks in advance.
 

bobtomay

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It really depends on what you're doing on the computer. Once every couple of weeks and prior to any updates being installed is probably going to be ok for a lot of folks that don't do much beside browse the web, check their junk email, play a game. I have a lot of friends that fall into the once every 2-4 weeks is often enough category.

Would recommend you consider prior to walking away from your machine, "Have I done anything since the last backup I cannot afford or don't want to lose?". If the answer to that is yes, it's time to do a backup.
 

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