View Full Version : more mac help needed
back alley
09-11-2011, 17:45
i have a macbook with 160 gig hard drive.
it's full.
i have 2 external backups with one housing just my photos and music.
i need to clear some space on the macbook and want to empty the 'pictures' folder. it wont let me delete the folder saying it is required.
is there a quick and easy way to empty the folder while still leaving the folder intact?
i plan to empty the music as well as soon as i finish ripping all my cds and putting them on my ipod.
sdotkling
09-11-2011, 17:56
Can you not open the folder, select all the pictures and drag them into the trash, leaving the folder?
back alley
09-11-2011, 18:00
Can you not open the folder, select all the pictures and drag them into the trash, leaving the folder?
doh!
thanks.
back alley
09-11-2011, 18:16
yeah, worked just fine.
back alley
09-11-2011, 19:51
why does it take so long for a mac to empty the trash?
willie_901
09-11-2011, 20:54
If you select "secure empty trash" it is overwriting the files instead of just deleting the directory links.
Otherwise, your HD is full and the OS is struggling to do it's internal bookkeeping because the HD head has to search all over the place to find empty space (for the bookkeeping).
WIth UNIX (the guts of OSX) is risky to let the OS HD get really full. I would reboot after everything is settled. Rebooting may be entirely superstitious, but UNIX will defragment your HD, so I like to reboot after a large deletion in case the defragmenting works better as UNIX wakes up after a boot. It sounds like you'll be OK after the deletion, but occasionally terrible things happen when the HD is actually full. So.. don't do that again.
back alley
09-11-2011, 20:56
who knew?
;)
Its very easy to put a much bigger drive in your macbook. By now that drive must be on its last legs any how....
back alley
09-12-2011, 05:09
Its very easy to put a much bigger drive in your macbook. By now that drive must be on its last legs any how....
why must it be on it's last legs?
the mac is running fine, never had a problem with it.
back alley
09-12-2011, 06:50
well, this is all beyond me...as long as it keeps on ticking i'll be a happy camper.
what amazes me is that this thing has been emptying the trash since last night and it's only half done now...
monochromejrnl
09-12-2011, 07:10
well, this is all beyond me...as long as it keeps on ticking i'll be a happy camper.
what amazes me is that this thing has been emptying the trash since last night and it's only half done now...
Joe - if you back up your HDD with Time Machine you're fine even if your macbook's HDD fails (and it will fail eventually)...you'll just have to replace the HDD and use Time Machine to bring you back to where your machine was at the last backup.
However if you don't have a backup system like Time Machine then you should pre-empt a failure by replacing the HDD otherwise it's just a matter of time before you lose EVERYTHING on your macbooks HDD.
why does it take so long for a mac to empty the trash?
You should see how long it takes me!
back alley
09-12-2011, 07:34
Joe - if you back up your HDD with Time Machine you're fine even if your macbook's HDD fails (and it will fail eventually)...you'll just have to replace the HDD and use Time Machine to bring you back to where your machine was at the last backup.
However if you don't have a backup system like Time Machine then you should pre-empt a failure by replacing the HDD otherwise it's just a matter of time before you lose EVERYTHING on your macbooks HDD.
i use 2 external drives. one is hooked to the mac and does regular back ups on the whole system.
the other is a usb drive and i use it for just my photos and my music.
back alley
09-12-2011, 07:36
You should see how long it takes me!
so this is normal?
It takes my son ages to empty the trash too ...
back alley
09-12-2011, 07:42
It takes my son ages to empty the trash too ...
he has a mac also?
:angel:
You guys must have a lot to throw away! I regularly keep the trash empty so it doesn't fill up my hard drive space. Back Alley, have you never emptied your trash before? If so that's probably why it's taking so long. Getting rid of gigs of info.
he has a mac also?
:angel:
Actually we're all Mc's ...
back alley
09-12-2011, 07:47
You guys must have a lot to throw away! I regularly keep the trash empty so it doesn't fill up my hard drive space. Back Alley, have you never emptied your trash before? If so that's probably why it's taking so long. Getting rid of gigs of info.
i emptied it once before and it took as long...i wondered then if it was normal.
it said it was emptying 37 thousand (+) items...
I just did mine, took 30-40 seconds for just over 300 files
I think your hard drive is tired and needs to take a nap ;P
Yep, probably, I last switched it off a few months back, probably needs doing again ... mind the scan files are fairly big
Joe, whether or not you use time machine, get an external drive that functions in RAID 1 mode. You will have half the capacity, because each file is mirrored, provided pretty strong safety (you would have to have both drives fail at the same time to lose your data).
If it's a good one (recent LaCie) it will be hot swappable, meaning you can replace a drive if it fails, and all the data will be copied from the good drive to the new blank one - all the while you can keep using the device.
As someone above mentioned, your drive WILL FAIL. And you can't always count on Time Machine - my MacBook drive failed a few weeks ago, and while the home directories were recoverable, the Applications folder was lost. Not a major catastrophe, but big pain in the ass.
In my opinion, you are best to keep all your precious stuff on the external RAID, and not depend on Time Machine.
Randy
? and why would that be?
BSD Unix (OS X) keeps fragmentation to a minimum by writing related data blocks within the same cylinder group, thus reducing seek time when the files are accessed.
My MacBook Air drive died, when it was too full. I believed filling the drive was less of a problem with the new OS - the Genius told me it was still more likely to provoke a failure.
Make sure you're backed up - well worth investing in a drive for Time Machine back up. But don't trust the Time Capsule wireless ones. I did...
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