Startup Disk is almost full

[VinylxScratches]

My friend is getting a Startup Disk is almost full error. He has a Macbook with a 500 GB drive and 300+ gigs are free. He is using uTorrent which I believe might be the issue. I don't know what could be the issue? I'm still looking into it.

 

[TheStu]

Hrm.

I know that Transmission pre-allocates space once a torrent starts downloading. And it actually, physically allocates the space. It creates <insert filename here>.<whatever> that is probably all 0s just for the purpose that it makes sure that you will not run out of space.

I do not use uTorrent, but it is possible that it is doing the same thing, but not actually physically allocating the space in the same way. So, it makes the system think that there is still free space, but in reality all the space has been allocated.

See if by deleting some of the torrents, or switching to Transmission fixes the problem.

 

[Injury]

Does your friend use Photoshop a lot without rebooting every day or so? I know some of the people at the job I previously worked out would find that their Scratch disks would balloon in size... I don't think there was any actual way to check how much space was allocated for it, but the issue was found to be that if Photoshop crashed, the scratch disk wouldn't get emptied and it wouldn't clear out and start anew when they relaunched Photoshop, it would start a new scratch space instead. So when people left their machines on for weeks they'd suddenly have issues doing minor things because this space never got emptied.

I guess in any case, the same issue could happen with a multitude of programs. Although OS X seems to be much, much, better than Windows at keeping space clear, it's not perfect, so properly closing out of applications and restarting from time to time may help.

 

[KeithP]

You might want to boot the machine from an original system disk and run Disk First Aid. It is possible the disk is having problems.

-KeithP

 

[TheStu]

OmniDiskSweeper is free now, so maybe get that and see what might be consuming all his space.

 

[Need4Speed]

This is a known bug with uTorrent.

 

[Need4Speed]

http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=49896

 

[MovingTarget]

I know the feeling. Too bad I skimped and got the 40Gb drive when I bought my ibook. FAIL

 

[VinylxScratches]

Originally posted by: Need4Speed
http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=49896

This is what I found out too. I told him to get a new client.

Thanks, everyone.

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: VinylxScratches

Originally posted by: Need4Speed
http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=49896

This is what I found out too. I told him to get a new client.

Thanks, everyone.

Transmission is great. Very small footprint, decent management, and very good recovery. Some torrent apps do not quit or recover from crashes well, Transmission is no longer one of those.

 

[VinylxScratches]

Thanks! I will recommend that to him.