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    Data Loss When HDD Is Low

    Discussion in 'Apple and Mac OS X' started by knp, Sep 16, 2008.

  1. knp

    knp Notebook Evangelist

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    Hi everyone. I've had this issue before when my HDD was running very low on space, usually under 1GB, and as a result, there is some data loss. This has happened before and resulted in the loss of the majority of my iTunes library and usually a loss in my Firefox bookmarks. Fortunately, I only my Firefox bookmarks, but does has this happened to anyone else?
     
  2. Seshan

    Seshan Rawrrr!

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    Why are you running your HDD below 1GB of space? Delete some stuff or get a bigger hard drive. You shouldn't run it that low.
     
  3. sheldon77

    sheldon77 Notebook Evangelist

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    HDD is there to be used, its not ideal but i have to say i have run with only 1 gb left even gotten down to <100mb, but even then i didnt have any problems like the ones your describing.
     
  4. Underpantman

    Underpantman Notebook Virtuoso

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    Yes the hdd is there to be used, and its used alot by the system for swapfiles, caches, sleep mode. etc etc... so although you might have "x" Gb left its always a good idea to have at least 15% free space to allow the os to run properly. Should OS's make this clearer to the end user??? probably! But then Hdd makers should probably list a Hdd useable (bits) space rather than bytes... and people should be nice to each other too !

    a
    :)
     
  5. wobble987

    wobble987 Notebook Virtuoso

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    i never run it that low in os x, although i have run it as low as... more/less than 100mb in windows a while back; doesnt seems to be deleting anything... although i get it up again to around 500mb as soon as i notice the drop; which windows is shouting me to do.
     
  6. knp

    knp Notebook Evangelist

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    I don't. I was downloading things and it happened to fall under the 1GB level. My downloads halted and when I checked to see why, I realized the HDD was very low on space. As a result, there was some data loss such as losing my Firefox bookmarks and settings being reset in my downloading client.

    Is it normal for this to occur when the HDD space drops to very low levels?
     
  7. RadcomTxx

    RadcomTxx Notebook Deity

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    i've never experencied data loss by having the harddive full to capacity. and i have taken my drive down to under 50MB.
     
  8. knp

    knp Notebook Evangelist

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    Yeah I've never of these problems, yet I am having them.

    Also, has anyone experienced major lag when Secure Emptying trash? For instance, when I use Secure Erase, browser windows take longer than usual to open, applications take longer to open, and the spinning ball keeps occurring.
     
  9. wobble987

    wobble987 Notebook Virtuoso

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    does mac os x tells you a 'low on disk space' warning when running low on HDD space? im guessing mac os x is unable to save your file/preferences when doing the said task (itunes lib, bookmarks) etc.

    your itunes music might still be there, it just that mac os x hasnt been able to modified its itunes music files, and its database. same as firefox, it is able run it on ram but unable to save it on HDD.

    just my guess...

    if you were secure emptying trash then yeah. of course it will lag!!!!!!! secure emptying is a disk and processor intensive task!

    think about it; writing 0(zero) or random character on top of every bit of your files.
     
  10. knp

    knp Notebook Evangelist

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    Yeah I know it's labor intensive. I upgraded from 2GB to 4GB of RAM hoping to notice a difference when secure emptying, but I don't see any. :(
     
  11. wobble987

    wobble987 Notebook Virtuoso

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    RAM has nothing to do with it;

    when secure emptying your trash; your CPU and HDD is the one that is used intensively.