[tinners]

When I installed & slimmed down my OSX install I was around 1Gb free on my SSD. (moved user / apps to SDHC etc.)

When using some apps (last time it was Dupin) I have noticed the drive free space reduces down and comes up with the "system disk running low on space" error.

I realise temp files need to be stored but several hundred MBs ? Is this normal ?
Can I move where these files are stored ?

Doesnt seem to be any particular app which is affected. Have noticed it particularly on itunes and dupin as there the apps I have been using most the last few days.

Thanks

[elfboy]

Don't know if this is one of the reasons for your probs, but:

iTunes saves mp3s by default in your Music/iTunes folder. If you keep adding tunes, it generally will make a copy there. But if you change the default iTunes folder in preferences to where you usually keep all your mp3s (external HDD or USB flash drive or SD etc) then it won't copy them on to the Mini.

[tinners]

Originally Posted by elfboy

Don't know if this is one of the reasons for your probs, but:

iTunes saves mp3s by default in your Music/iTunes folder. If you keep adding tunes, it generally will make a copy there. But if you change the default iTunes folder in preferences to where you usually keep all your mp3s (external HDD or USB flash drive or SD etc) then it won't copy them on to the Mini.

Thanks for the idea. I am running my itunes library on my Windows Home Server so it isnt that.

[Leeward]

Originally Posted by tinners

When I installed & slimmed down my OSX install I was around 1Gb free on my SSD. (moved user / apps to SDHC etc.)

I realise temp files need to be stored but several hundred MBs ? Is this normal ?
Can I move where these files are stored ?

Doesnt seem to be any particular app which is affected. Have noticed it particularly on itunes and dupin as there the apps I have been using most the last few days.

Thanks

I can't say if it is temp files causing the problem but it could be part of the problem.

Re: Temp files:
OS X, being based on a unix type design creates, not only temp files.. but also log files for all the tasks it does. It logs, login attempts, network connections etc etc etc.
This enables you to look back and see problems.

Mail, Spotlight (search tool that indexes all the files/documents/email) and other apps, also keep databases which fill up over time.


There are scripts that are run automatically, daily, weekly and monthly by the OS as a "cron" task. They clean up the temp files and archive the log files, among other things.

The only problem is that OS X, being based on an enterprise oriented OS, has the cleanup scripts scheduled to run at night. So if you don't have you netbook on at night, the script don't get to run.

There are freeware apps that allows you to run the scripts manually.

Onyx is a great freeware utility... I consider it a "must have"
Titanium Software

OnyX is multi-functional, among other things it...
-it repairs disk permissions
-runs those maintenance scripts
-rebuilds and optimizes Spotlight’s index
-rebuilds the LaunchServices database
-deletes applications, font and system cache
-checks the SMART status of hard disks,
-verifies the start-up disk and the structure of its system files
-allows you to configure some hidden parameters of the Finder, Dock, Dashboard, Expose’, Safari, Log-in window and of some of Apple’s own applications



If you are OK with using the command line , you can run them that way too.
I can't find the link to the page I prefer, which contains almost everything there is to know about this topic, but here is a link to more detailed info about the scripts and how to run them from the command line.

Running Mac OS X Maintenance Scripts
Maintaining Mac OS X


BTW:
I suggest you check out a few other apps:
xslimmer
Cocktail

Both you have to pay for but xslimmer is worth it's weight in gold if you need to save space.


FWIW: running OS X on a 8GB SSD, while possible, is a bit of a pain.
If you can afford it, I'd get a bigger SSD.
I've been running on 8GB but I made the leap and expect to recieve my new runcore 64GB SSD today.

Hope this helps...
Lee

[Woodrow]

I'm on an 8GB SSD as well I've noticed also that occasionally my HDD space will rapidly plunge from just under a gig to quite literally nothing, without any real explination and in the space of half a minute. I haven't been able to identify what is doing it either . But for general spacesaving the suggestions above are fairly decent, though let me throw one more to you.

Watch your automatic updates. On mine I've set the automatic software updating to only check manually when I request, however occasionally it turns itself back on to "check once a week" and "automatically download updates". These installers can easily take out all your remaining space. And even after you install the updates the installers will stay on your drive. To delete them, just go to /Library/Updates/ and wipe the files from in there. Also, obviously, you'll want to set your Software Update to manually check without downloading.

Other things like setting your firefox default download folder to an SD card help as well

[Woodrow]

Or at least I think so. After a lot of investigation and liberal use of the "sudo fs_usage" command I was able to spot that it was the mds (spotlight) process that was continually going through a cycle of eating up my HDD space (all 700 remaining MB) then freeing it again every 45 seconds.

A quick googling turned up this thread here:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=377014
and using the first suggestion of putting the entire Macintosh HD into spotlight's privacy section this issue seems to have gone away. Of course it'll take a bit of time to confirm it but so far the HDD ramping stopped almost immediately after I put it on the list. I don't really see the loss of spotlight as anything important given that there's too little space to store anything on the HDD anyway, let alone store a massive search-capability-needed file collection

Anyhow, Thought I'd post this up as I haven't seen anything else on this subject and I know I'm not the only 8GB'er out there