Hi,
I'm stumped! I've deleted an old back up from an external drive (approx 500gb) which I didn't need as I had all the important files on other drives. Emptied trash etc but there still isn't any new space on the drive. Any ideas?
Thanks.
Thanks. The drive has other things on. The backup that was on it was an old one that I didn't need, but wanted to free up the space on the drive (hdd). It was actually a back up from an older mac also, that stopped working properly a while ago. The drive is a 1tb drrive that showed 6.8gb space before deleting the back up & 7.5gb after deleting it.
I would do this (in order):
• empty the trash
• eject the drive
• restart the Mac
• reconnect the drive and check the storage status - if still not what you expect...
• launch Disk Utility and run First Aid on the drive and any volumes it contains.
👍🏽 It's always difficult to know where to start to help since we aren't looking over your shoulder.
Since you've already done all that, the best I can suggest is to copy everything else off the drive to another, and then erase and reformat this problem child.
You said you deleted "an old backup... from an older Mac... that stopped working" so I wonder: just how old is this mechanical drive?
If it's more than five or six years it may be showing it age and just needs to be retired.
Consider running Drive DX from Binary Fruit. It's a pretty thorough disk diagnostic utility. I believe there's a free trial version that can answer the majority of questions about the drive and point out any deficiencies.
Thanks, though one of the reasons for deleting it was I needed space so I don't have another drive to hand that has enough for all the other data (& I have several external drives). It's a drive that hasn't been used much - just had these backup's on from a while ago & whilst I am aware of how & why they can stop working that isn't the issue here. I guess what I'm looking for is if anyone knows why deleting a backup doesn't automatically mean the space is freed up.
Usually, on older Mac systems, deleting data from a drive does release the space immediately. That isn’t happening here, so I’m wondering if the drive hasn’t suffered some failure, which is why I suggested running Drive DX.
An old drive that hasn’t been used much is as susceptible to failure as one that is used regularly.
Do you know the age of the drive?
To get a better big picture here it also would be helpful to know how this drive is formatted and exactly what Mac you are using and which version of macOS.
Apologies, I tried to communicate that I am well aware of hard drive performance & longevity, as I have multiple drives. I mention this one not having been heavily used simply to say that it wasn't one that had multiple cycles of information being added & deleted, if that might have made any difference to this issue. I advise sections of a particular industry on hard drive / ssd drives so I am aware, for example, that the age of a drive doesn't necessarily affect its ability to give a decent performance. Drives from 10-15 years ago & more can & do still work ok.
I am running Venture but the backup was from a macbook from 2-3 years back. Formatted in OS-journaled.
If you have no other important data on the drive, then simply erase it and start fresh.
What is the capacity and type (hdd, ssd) of the drive?
Thanks. I should have clarified that I did eject & re-connect the drive, the trash was emptied as stated & I have run first aid on the drive. None of that made a difference.
Backup deleted from external drive but no new space
