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iNode?????
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Thorzdad
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Nov 24, 2019, 05:48 PM
 
So, I'm rooting around on my iMac, and in the folder under MacintoshHD > Lost+Found there's a file named iNode45099746. It's 5.3 Gigs big. Looks like it was Created/Last Opened/Last Modified back in 2016.

What is this thing, and can I safely delete it to grab back 5 gigs of space?

(This is in 10.9.5, if that matters)
     
reader50
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Nov 24, 2019, 06:56 PM
 
The file system assigns a unique ID number, called an inode, to every file and folder in a volume. In addition to the filename and path.

So a file that was deleted, but never had its inode revoked, got found. From that size, it could be a VM file or an OS install image. Did your Mac in 2016 have 5GB RAM?

Go ahead and delete it. It was probably meant to be deleted anyway. If you're really curious, try adding .img to the end, see if it opens.
     
Thorzdad  (op)
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Nov 24, 2019, 10:40 PM
 
Thanks, Reader. I’ll try the .img thing and see what I get. Then I’ll delete it.
My Mac had 8GB RAM in 2016.

Interestingly (I think) in looking at various files and folders, it seems like a ton of them were created (and last modified) back in 2016. It’s a late 2009 iMac, and I have no idea what was going on in 2016.
     
reader50
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Nov 24, 2019, 11:16 PM
 
Originally Posted by Thorzdad View Post
... and I have no idea what was going on in 2016.
Note that as a public forum, literally any LEO in the world could be reading. If you cannot remember 2016, I advise against saying anything specific about why.
     
Thorzdad  (op)
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Nov 24, 2019, 11:25 PM
 
     
Thorzdad  (op)
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Nov 25, 2019, 09:33 AM
 
I added .img to the iNode filename, launched it and ended up with a volume called OS X Install ESD. Inside that is a single folder called Packages. Inside that are a bunch of, well, packages...

AdditionalEssentials.pkg
AdditionalSpeechVoices.pkg
AsianLanguagesSupport.pkg
BaseSystemBinaries.pkg
BaseSystemResources.pkg
BSD.pkg
Essentials.pkg (this one is over 3 gig on its own)
InstallableMachines.plist
JavaEssentials.pkg
JavaTools.pkg
MediaFiles.pkg
OSInstall.mpkg
OSInstall.pkg
OSUpgrade.pkg
OxfordDictionaries.pkg
X11redirect.pkg

These all have creation dates of 9/9/2014.
Something kind of odd I discovered is that, when I look through the bootable backup I made using SuperDuper, this lost&found folder isn't there.
     
reader50
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Nov 25, 2019, 01:47 PM
 
Yep, that's an OS install image. 2014 suggests a Yosemite installer. Or an earlier one that got re-downloaded in 2014.

Probably turned up during some routine disk maintenance. Delete away.
     
CharlesS
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Nov 26, 2019, 02:15 AM
 
Originally Posted by reader50 View Post
Yep, that's an OS install image. 2014 suggests a Yosemite installer. Or an earlier one that got re-downloaded in 2014.
Being one of those crazy HFS+ fake iNode files means it's pre-High Sierra, at the very least. Of course, using my incredible powers of deduction, I can reasonably surmise that it's Mavericks, since Thorzdad said so in the OP.

(Look, something finally turned up again that's actually in my wheelhouse after all these years, I had to say something)

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
reader50
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Nov 26, 2019, 05:00 AM
 
Welcome back, Charles!

Since we're (almost) all using APFS now, might you return to that file deduplication utility? Many of us would get more than 5GB back from a pass on a mature volume. My volume originated in Jaguar.
     
Thorzdad  (op)
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Nov 26, 2019, 10:12 AM
 
Deduplication utility? Please...tell me more.
     
reader50
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Nov 26, 2019, 02:55 PM
 
APFS allows you to hardlink multiple copies of a file ... while changes are written separately. It's done automatically going forward. You save a modified copy of a file, and see 2x files after. In fact, APFS links to the original file, and only writes out the changes. So ...

5MB original file.
Open file, make changes, save 6MB copy with a revised name.
under HFS+, you have two files, taking up 11MB total.
under APFS, you see two files, but only 6MB is used. 5MB original + 1MB of changed blocks.

But APFS has no utility to extend that back to pre-existing files. CharlesS was experimenting with a utility (CloneClub) that would find existing identical files, and do the hardlinking trick to free up space. But we weren't sure APFS was stable yet, and APFS was undocumented. So the utility only scanned. We never got to the dedupe part - too dangerous without proper documentation.

Apple finally did release proper APFS documentation, and the drivers seem stable today.
     
CharlesS
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Nov 26, 2019, 09:59 PM
 
Hehe, yeah I kind of dropped the ball on that, didn't I. I still need to finish that Swift rewrite of Pacifist, which has been sitting at like 80% ready to start beta testing for a few years (argh, sorry, I've been going through some big changes in my life and have been a bit distracted). Part of the problem is that I keep refactoring it. Oh hey, let's rewrite this in Swift! Oh hey, the code for the async stuff would look a lot nicer if I used PromiseKit! Oh hey, I could probably actually get this to work in the sandbox if I separated out all the stuff that needs root access into an XPC helper! Oh hey, as long as I'm doing that, I could DESCRIPTION OF NEW FEATURES REDACTED Rewrite, rewrite, rewrite, rewrite... argh, knock it off, self.

I need to get off my duff and finish this, some of the new things this can do are pretty neat (IMO anyway).

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
CharlesS
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Nov 27, 2019, 10:56 PM
 
Update: It turns out someone actually made this tool in the intervening years, and included a verification tool to make sure everything worked. I'd still be sure to back up first, of course.

Ticking sound coming from a .pkg package? Don't let the .bom go off! Inspect it first with Pacifist. Macworld - five mice!
     
reader50
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Nov 28, 2019, 12:50 AM
 
I wouldn't touch that one. He isn't doing an actual file-compare before the dedupe. To avoid checksum collisions. You knew to do that before I asked about it.

Looks like he uses separate scripts (you must have python installed). Script to create checksum DB. Another script does merges (a later commit does rerun checksums before merge to detect file changes, earlier versions didn't) - and the user can manually run a verify script.

Oh, and it's command-line-only. I would rather trust CloneClub.
     
   
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