Macbook Pro 2017 Laptop Calculating storage question

[Lakerfanalways]

Hi everyone I am new to the board..I have a question I have a brand new macbook pro only got it two months ago..hardly have anything on it a few applications(I got the 256GB one) I have the latest operating system..so I have noticed when I go to the apple logo and to storage it always says "Calculating" but when I go to manage everything shows up as normal, shows me how much I have used on applications, ibooks, music, etc..just not sure why it keeps on saying calculating and wont change. I know I have seen it run right a few times just the last few times it only says calculating..so any help I would really appreciate..the macbook runs smoothly I guess Im just overly paranoid want to make sure there is nothing wrong
Thanks so much

 

[MacInWin]

Welcome to the forum. Read the links in my sig to find out about what to do if the site disappears.

The About This Mac storage display is notoriously inaccurate. The calculating pause is also notorious for taking forever. If you want more detail, there are third party tools such as Daisy Disk that will do some sorting out for you.

 

[Lakerfanalways]

thank you so much for responding to my post..as long as this is normal than I will go ahead and ignore it..just weird that it was doing it that's all..how long does it normally take to actually show me the details..if ever? But as long as this is a normal thing than I wont bother caring about it anymore just overly cautious when it comes to this macbook since its new and Im new to the whole mac experience

 

[MacInWin]

I can't say how long it might take. Sometimes it's there in seconds, other times it takes a while. No known obvious reasons, but could be related to the indexing of the drive and the current status of Spotlight. Who know?

 

[Lakerfanalways]

should I do something regarding indexing the spotlight or is that not necessary..I guess its sorta like when windows recommends defragmenting the drive to put everything in order? I mean as long as this is a normal thing I will just let it go..I guess I should NOT have googled it makes the situation look worse than it is LOL

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Indexing isn't the same as defrag'ing. Indexing is more akin to cataloging the data on your system so that Spotlight can show you files/applications when you search for it. Without the index, your results will be severely limited. Once the full index is done, subsequent addition/deletion of files are indexed pretty quickly.

 

[IWT]

I guess its sorta like when windows recommends defragmenting the drive

It's already been explained how Spotlight and its Indexing is nothing to do with defragmentation.

I just wanted to add that as you have a MacBook Pro, your storage is on a Solid State Drive (SSD) and these should never be subjected to defragmentation. SSDs work in a different way from spinning platter drives, don't need defragmentation and, indeed, defrag can actually harm the SSD and reduce its life.

BTW, a more reliable estimate of storage use and available free space can be achieved by going into Finder > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility (DU).

When you engage DU, it will show you the status of your SSD and any other drives currently attached. From here, you can also carry out First Aid on a drive and other things too.

Ian

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Just a subtle clarification on defrag. It isn't that it works differently on HDD as opposed to SSDs, the reason it's not suggested to do it on a SSD is because SSDs have a limited number of write cycles. The process of defragmentation essentially erases and writes a lot of data as it's being moved around and this will eat into those write (erase is also a write) cycles unnecessarily and shorten the life of the drive.

 

[IWT]

Much better put than I did, Ashwin.

But we agree defragmentation is not for SSDs. Thanks.

Ian