Why is my backup smaller than the original HD?

[uelef]

I today backuped my Macintosh HD via SuperDuper! with the script "backup - all files". And now I'm a little bit confused that the clone FW disk has only 146 GB of data but my Macintosh HD has 176 GB.

Is this normal? Or is there something wrong with my backup?

Ulf
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vaporizer forum

[dnanian]

Ulf:

If you used "Backup - all files", it sounds like your source drive was chock full of temporary and swap files. But 30GB of swap/temp is a LOT. Has it been a long time since you last restarted this machine?

[uelef]

Hey, Dave,

the fastest support I ever got... only 3 or 4 minutes.
No, I restart my Mac every day. The strange thing also is, that when I compare the shown folders of the both harddisks they almost have the same size (Applications, Applications (Mac OS 9), Library, System...).

I also have a problem with my G5 (dual 2.5 GHz with 2.5 GB RAM) that I cannot explain: It needs so much time to start with the Macintosh HD - especially the time from the login window until all autostart apps and files on my desktop are loaded. When I use the backup disk as starting volume the startup time is much shorter (about two times).
I discussed this phenomena on Mac Rumors forum (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthre...45#post1596545) but no-one could help me.

Ulf
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Toyota Innova

[dnanian]

Sounds, perhaps, like the internal drive is heavily fragmented, Ulf. You might want to consider iDefrag or its equivalent.

Regarding the difference in copy sizes -- again, the only thing that might account for this would be a lot of temporary or swap files. That would also make sense given what you found with your own "folder check"...

[uelef]

Do you know a tool to clean up temporary and swap files? Maybe freeware?

I do not know why my harddisk should be heavily fragmented. I made a clean install with Mac OS X Tiger midth of May. And as far as I know Mac OS X automatically defrags files (except big ones).

Ulf
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1000

[dnanian]

Temporary and swap files should be cleaned up automatically every time you boot, Ulf. So -- that shouldn't be the problem. But, it's hard to know what your applications do.

Your hard disk might not be fragmented... but I don't know why it'd be so much slower than an external drive, given that it's a SATA unit. I assume that its SMART status is normal...