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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Mac HD space

glendini - Sep 19, 2006 - 6:41 am

I run Logic 6.4 on my g4 power book with panther. It's really starting to slow down and i wish to create more space on the HD. I really don't do anything else with this particular lap top so the more space created the better. What can i trash and what do i need to keep? I do not use it for inter net or i-tunes or any such thing.
can u help?
cheers, glendini.

jackr - Sep 20, 2006 - 9:17 am

I've never used that program, so I can't be sure, but as a general rule running low on disk space doesn't make things slower, so cleaning it up may not make things faster. If speeding up Logic is your primary goal, you might want to take a different approach.

To answer your question, though: what you can clean depends on what you have, and what you need, I can't make those decisions for you! Rather, I would suggest this procedure:

First, empty the trash (Finder menu). Then,

1. Open a Terminal window (Applications -> Utilities -> Terminal)
2. type "sudo du / | sort -n > /tmp/du.txt"
3. provide your password if asked
4. let that run ... it'll take a while!
5. type "tail -100 /tmp/du.txt > /tmp/du-short.txt"
6. type "open /tmp/du-short.txt"

What you'll see on screen is the top 100 disc-space eating directories on your entire system. You will probably find that this list breaks down into three parts:

1. stuff you know what it is, and you need it (don't remove these!)
2. stuff you have no idea what it is (tread with caution)
3. stuff you know what it is, and you don't need it (this is the stuff to remove)

Because you're starting with the biggest part of your usage, hopefully you'll only have to remove a few things.

Here are some things that you may find in category 2 (stuff you don't recognize) that are probably category 3 (removable), and are sometimes quite large:

/Previous Systems.localized -
Sometimes the software upgrade process stores a lot of old stuff here, in case you decide you want it back after the upgrade. If your system is working now and you're not aware of any need to rescue anything from here, then you can remove this.

/Applications -
You may find this directory very big, but of course it contains many applications, some you want, some you don't. Look through the individual applications. For instance, from your description you may not be using the Microsoft Office applications, but you probably have a demo copy here. Nuke that; also, look for anything that belongs to these programs in your home directory (/Users//Library/Application Support). For instance, on my system I have GarageBand, an Apple program somewhat like Logic, which I don't really need. In addition to /Applications/GarageBand.app, I have
- /Library/Application Support/GarageBand
- /Users/Shared/GarageBand Demo Songs
- /Library/Documentation/Applications/GarageBand
- /Library/Audio/Apple oops/Apple/Apple Loops for GarageBand