I’d day this is probably a first in my career. It appears that after installing the Mac OS X 10.5.8 update my drive space requirements have gone down.
Before 10.5.8
Yup, that’s right, my System partition now occupies a bit less space than it did prior to the update. I’d first noticed this on my old PowerBook and thought I was going nuts. But after installing the update on my Intel tower as well, the results seem pretty consistent.
After 10.5.8
If this is the sort of thing we can expect in Snow Leopard, you can officially call me excited.
Now about those upgrade disks. Anyone know what’s up with them?
Anyone?
UPDATE:
So I just installed three additional updates — Safari 4.0.3, Security Update 2009-004, and the latest GarageBand patch — and my available drive space has increased even more. One commenter has brought up the possibility that these space gains are simply due to swap files being deleted after a reboot. But all these screen shots — including the first one — are taken immediately after a reboot, so I don’t think swap files should be a factor. Also, the gains on my PowerBook were significant enough to rule out swap. And now I’m seeing subsequent updates freeing up even more drive space.
After Additional Updates
No, I think something else is going on here. My suspicion is that we’re beginning to see some of the sorts of efficiency improvements — like a smaller disk space footprint — that Snow Leopard is supposed to be all about. I suspect that whatever they’re doing in Snow Leopard to reduce disk usage is making its way into the latest bunch of updates, and so these updates are actually decreasing the amount of disk space required by the OS.
But this is only a wild guess. For the record, I’ve got no more evidence than I’m presenting here, and have not been thorough nor the least bit scientific in my approach to this phenomenon, nor do I have time to investigate much beyond these observations.
I think you have to admit, though, if nothing else, it’s quite odd to see a consistent increase in drive capacity after multiple system updates. This is not the usual way of things.
9 Comments
I think you’ll have to buy the Mac Box Set to get a true no-strings-attached Snow Leopard install disc. But I have no inside knowledge beyond reading between the lines of Apple’s specs
http://www.apple.com/macosx/specs.html
“If your Intel-based Mac is running Mac OS X v10.4 Tiger, purchase the Mac Box Set (when available)…”
Patrick,
I think you’re probably right.
Thanks!
-systemsboy
I have deleted a comment from someone calling himself Chucky for being a rather virulent bit of comment snark, as per my comment policy:
http://systemsboy.com/2001/07/policy.html
But Chucky brings up a good point, which is that such a space increase could be the result of freed memory after a system reboot. I don’t believe this to be the case. Each screen shot was taken just after a reboot, so swap shouldn’t have been a factor. Also, on my PowerBook the increase was significant enough for me to rule out an increase due to swap files.
-systemsboy
More interesting tidbits:
http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/08/12/sources_detail_changes_to_snow_leopard_installation_process.html
Nothing about the upgrade vs. full installation though.
Thanks again, Patrick.
It kind of looks like there’s no full Snow Leopard install disk unless you pay extra for the iLife bundle, which would be a shame, especially considering I already have iLife. I think I’ll forgo pre-ordering until I can see what’s actually available. But I’ll probably feel rather cheated if I end up having to pay more just to get a full installer disk.
We shall see, I guess.
-systemsboy
I spoke with an Apple Sales rep, and he made it very clear that they are not releasing any information about how the upgrade disc will work.
I’m not sure what that means. It could mean that the disc will have a full install, but they don’t want everyone to know that yet. Or it could mean there will be some onerous upgrade process, and they don’t want everyone to know that yet, either.
Excellent sleuthing, Lewis. I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s miffed. (Geez. That sounded like something out of a Nancy Drew book.)
Yeah, I think I’ll wait and see what the options are. No pre-ordering for me, I’m afraid.
-systemsboy
Snow Leopard takes it a step further. You don’t seem to lose all that space due to formatting. One of the other techs at work happened to notice it when I turned on drive info.
Cool!
-systemsboy