My hard drive seems to be filling up too fast. I have looked at MMT3's excellent post, Where Did My Disk Space Go, and have followed most of the steps. I want to see .Trashes. As instructed, I entered cd /.Trashes but the command that MMT3 wrote, namely sudo ls-lias, doesn't work in Snow Leopard. What is the correct command for SL?

My troubleshooting is preliminary at this point but I had been aware of a lot of hard drive activity, due to sounds of the drive working, but relegated that to a peculiarity of SL. While those sounds were occurring, I went to the TechTool Protection preference pane and saw that the Directory Backup was in progress. Coincidentally, I saw that the hard drive's occupied space increased when I did a Get Info on the drive. I turned off Directory Backup to see what would happen. It is premature to say anything (and, so far, the extra drive activity seems to have ceased) but I wonder if this is causing the issue. I am using the latest version of TTP.

EDIT: I have not yet tried WhatSize because there may be a way to avoid buying a license. Yes, I'm cheap, but perhaps I can save something this way. The only automated backup running is Time Machine. I back up with SuperDuper manually.


Edited by jchuzi (12/13/09 05:21 PM ET)
Edit Reason: changed title so that MMT3 will be aware of it

Edited by joemikeb (12/14/09 10:09 AM ET)
Edit Reason: This topic evolved from an apparent system issue to an applications issue and was relocated from Mac OS X 10.6.x to Mac OS X Applications

Quick reply... there needs to be a space between ls and -lias

Also, it's always best to copy the session out of Terminal and paste here (so we can see precisely the syntax you entered and the exact wording of the error message. I don't suppose it said "doesn't work" did it? )

Thanks, Hal. I consider myself suitably chastised. The error message was: sudo: ls-lias: command not found. Following your correction of the command, I got
total 0
6400350 0 d-wx-wx-wt@ 2 root admin 68 Dec 4 07:46 .
2 0 drwxrwxr-t 34 root admin 1224 Nov 27 06:45 ..

May I assume that "total 0" means that .Trashes is empty?

To add extra information:

After turning off TechTool Protection, hard drive space does not seem to be increasing. Another observation: I changed the names of two hard drives when I upgraded from Leopard to Snow Leopard.

Backup HD became SnowLeopard HD (and I upgraded my backup after making a fresh clone) while Leopard HD became the new Backup HD. Yet, the TTP preference pane showed Leopard HD and Backup HD. I assume that TTP's interpretation of those names refers to the old drives, which have been renamed.

Yep, nothing there. [technically, the 0 means that: whatever is in there is using zero bytes blocks of disk space. If you had a bunch of uninhabited folders and/or completely blank files in there, then the trash wouldn't really be "empty"... but the total would still read 0.]

This thread from the arkhives looks tailor-made for you:
> "Directory Backup" Files Eating Storage Space <

EDIT: what sorta numbers does this command get you? [prefix with sudo if need be]
du -sch {,~}/Library/Application\ Support/TechTool*



Hmm, best to wait and see what MMT3 says about all that.

Bingo. /Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection/volume_name/ occupies 74.71 GB. The hard drive has 125.28 GB of data, total. I'll wait for MMT3 but if I don't hear anything soon, I'll trash that folder.

Many thanks for the link, Hal.

EDIT: I just contacted Micromat's online support, in case MMT3 doesn't see this thread.

Here's something interesting: The command that you added in an edit comes up:

du -sch {,~}/Library/Application\ Support/TechTool*
70G /Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection
472K /Users/jonathanmchuzi/Library/Application Support/TechTool Pro 5
70G total

I had done a Get Info on both folders previous to seeing your edit but thought that you might be interested in the result. I don't know why the command shows less data in the obese one.

Hard to tell. Although it could be a rounding error in du (since the -h option makes for 'human' readable output), i still tend to trust Finder less in matters of size measurement. (Finder tends to cache stuff).

It may be off the beaten path (so i can understand if you just rather skip it), but -- if you relaunch Finder -- does it still disagree with du by as much as 4 gigs?! [i could see if Finder's size was smaller... because it simply skips subfolders which might be denying access. But since Finder's number was larger, and du didn't give any access denied message... it does seem strange. (4 gigs is a lot).]

Perhaps the discrepancy is simply the old one between decimal and binary gigabytes, since Snow Leopard's Finder seems to have replaced the latter with the former (see How Mac OS X reports drive capacity).

Assuming 10.6's Terminal still reports disk usage in binary terms (the Terminal experiment to establish this one way or the other being left as an exercise for the reader ), we'd expect a volume that Get Info pegged as having 74.1 GB used to show up in Terminal with about 69.6 GB occupied—the correct value if du is rounding to the nearest GB (couldn't figure that out from the man pages, but in experimenting with 10.5's du, it does appear that the -h option reports double-digit GB values without any decimal places).

I get the same thing if I relaunch Finder. Dk's theory about the differences in calculation methods is probably correct.

I experimented and solved the recognition problem by trashing ~/Library/Preferences/com.micromat.techtoolpro5.plist When I went to the TT Protection preference pane, the correct hard drive names were there. I won't trash the /Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection until I either hear from Micromat privately or MMT3 replies in this thread.

Jon, any reason for using TTP protection at all? My whole /Library is slightly over 600 MB.

Oh no... PLEASE, no.
Make it stop.

[<sigh> You're probably right... and i'm none too anxious to learn about Kibbles 'n' Bits.]

It's probably not necessary but I'm sufficiently paranoid to want multiple levels of protection. At present, it's turned off.

This morning, I rummaged around a bit more, found /Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection/TechToolProtection.plist and trashed it. I then reset my preferences in the TT Protection preference pane. I did this because there still seemed to be some activity going on even though I had turned off Directory Backup.

Hopefully, I will hear from MMT3 or Micromat later today.

Jon,

Thanks for creating this thread. I too was concerned when I noticed my TT Protection folder that was/is 1.45 GB. And even that seems unusually large to me. So indeed I want to know what’s going on...

Re WhatSize, I too quit it when the developers began charging for it. Now I Use OmniDiskSweeper . Works great and it is free.

Here is Micromat's advice:

You can trash the TechTool Protection folder in the Library/Application Support folder.

We suggest that you uninstall TechTool Pro 5, run a Repair Permissions on the startup hard drive, and then reinstall. Be sure to use version 5.0.6.

To uninstall, run the Installer and choose Uninstall from the pop-down menu on the main Install screen (instead of Easy Install).

TechTool Protection should save at most three backups for each configured volume--then delete the oldest when it makes a newer one. You can go to the TechTool Protection system preference pane under the Directory Backup tab to turn off saving of directory backups for any volumes for which you don't want them saved.

Thank You
Micromat Inc.
Technical Support Team

I will follow their advice and, if I don't post anything else, everyone may assume that the problem has been solved. A big THANK YOU to Hal and the others who have responded.

Jon,

I am sorry that I did not see this thread. I have been dealing with kitchen plumbing problems, the most amusing of which is a faucet that has developed three pinhole jets of water. No more need to use a glass - just stand in front of the sink, turn on the water, and open mouth.

I had the same problem arise myself with directory backups, as reported in TTP5 Directory Backups - Delete old files. It would have been interesting to see if you had both the DirectoryBackup (OFF) and DirectoryBackup (ON) files in Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection/Volume_name.

Why don't I have that TechTool Protection folder? I'm using version 4.6.2

It is set to run daily, and it is on.

TechTool Pro 4.x stores the Protection data files (the backups of the disk directory) in an invisible folder at the root level of the volume. The name is .TechToolProItems. You should be able to see the contents of the folder using this pathname in the Finder's "Go to Folder" menu choice:

/.TechToolProItems

I see, from your link, that the problem will be fixed with the next update. I already trashed the TT Protection folder, uninstalled TTP and reinstalled, but I looked in Time Machine and found that I did have both DirectoryBackup (OFF) and DirectoryBackup (ON) in the relevant Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection/Volume_name folders.

I'm sorry about your plumbing issues but they're easier to solve than computer problems.

Seems like -- if Time Machine is taking hourly snapshots of those protection files -- the backup disk would be getting full quite fast. Perhaps you should tell Time Machine to ignore that whole folder?

Yes, the backup disk is quite full but I'm not concerned. As of now, the latest backup is all that I need in case I have to restore. I also have a clone that I updated after I trashed that folder and reinstalled TTP. Eventually, TM will eliminated the old obese folder and I'll be left with all newer backups.

This whole issue has been ironic because MMT3 originally wrote the tip about losing hard drive space and, as it turns out, TTP is responsible in my case. This proves that the computer gods have a sense of humor.

I agree that Time Machine should be configured to exclude /Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection/Volume_name folders.

The following problem took the programmer a record short amount of time to fix for the next version:

If the DirectoryBackup (ON) file is in the relevant /Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection/Volume_name folders, then a new Protection file was made.

If the DirectoryBackup (OFF) file is in the relevant /Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection/Volume_name folders, then old Protection files were not deleted.

Have both files, and you get more and more backups.

The computer gods do not merely have a sense of humor, they want a Golden Globe. My lack of disk space was brought to my attention by the Volume Usage feature of TechTool Pro 5. When I saw the alert, I groaned and thought I had found a bug in the Volume Usage feature itself. It did the job. I used Baseline to find the folder that had grown the most since the last scan.

I decided to follow that recommendation by Hal and yourself, so I excluded those folders. I have another question, however:

At the root level of the drive, there is a different TechTool Protection folder. It has the names of drives from my 10.5 system, namely Backup HD, Leopard HD and Storage HD. The first two are the ones that were renamed. The last backup is listed on Nov. 10, 2009. Even though I ran the TTP uninstaller, it looks as if this is a leftover from the old installation. What do you think? (Directory Backup of either ON or OFF is not there.)

Jon,

Please delete the folder at the root level of the drive. That folder should be from the TechTool Pro 4 application, which would have to be removed using a TechTool Pro 4 installer’s Uninstall feature.

It's done. Thank you.

You should follow that up by going to /Library/Application Support/, slide into Time Machine, navigate to any snapshot, and select the TechTool Protection folder. Then choose 'Delete all backups of "TechTool Protection"' from the action menu. That should free up a bunch of space. [it may take TM a while, but that's the preferred method. -- I.e., it's best to *not* use Finder (or Terminal) to monkey with TM's database, whenever possible... but rather, request TM to do its own cleaning.]

Thank you again, Hal. Your advice is excellent, as always, and I followed it.

But, above you gave the path Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection/Volume_name and I don't have that sequence. If the other folder is invisible, there must be a reason. I don't need to see it.

You don't have the "/Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection" doobie, because you don't have version 5.


You don't have the "/Library/Application Support/TechTool Protection" doobie, because you don't have version 5.


Items whose name start with a period are hidden in Finder. The "Go to Folder..." method given by MicroMatTech3 is one way to see its content, and using Terminal is another:

ls -l /.TechToolProItems


[that is an option, i suppose.]
So then, what is the question?

Pardon me. I didn't see the first reference to version 5 in the 15th or 16th post, where Jon quoted MMT3. It took me several minutes to find it this time. What is the question? Why don't you know? You answered it twice.