Seems like a lot of excluded files?

[dmurphy]

On my original drive I'm using 62 gigs. After backing up all files with SD, then booting off of that drive, the backup only uses 39 gigs. That seems like a lot of excluded files. I'm sure I selected backup all files.

Is it normal to have that many temporary and system files that don't have to be copied? And if they don't need to be copied, is there a utility to clean up some of that junk from my original drive?

[dnanian]

It's not normal, Daniel. Try ejecting all external drives. Then, go to the /Volumes folder using Finder's "Go To Folder..." command.

If you see any folders named the same as a now-ejected external drive, erase it. It's likely that's where the space is.

[dmurphy]

Thanks for the help... but there's nothing there other than what I'd expect to see there. Any other ideas?

[dnanian]

The full list of files ignored is actually in the script. It's basically the contents of /Volumes, /tmp and /private/var/vm.

The latter can be quite large, but not nearly 30GB. And it and /tmp should be cleared out each time you restart. So... that leaves /Volumes...

[dmurphy]

Well, Spotlight has been acting funny for me lately. I wonder if there is something more messed up on my computer than I thought.... hmm