Where did I get a 16 TB disk?

TidBITS Talk
1

This morning, Disk Utility said I had a 16 TB container. (I assure you that I do not.)

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At the time, Time Machine was backing up to an ethernet-connected Time Capsule that has a 2 TB disk. At no time was there an icon on the Desktop for this device, container, or volume. Shortly (maybe one to two minutes) after the backup completed, the entries for the 16 TB container (and its device and sole volume) disappeared, so I assume the container is on the Time Capsule internal drive and some interaction between Time Capsule and macOS (Sequoia 15.7.8) confused Disk Utility. Any confirmation or refutation? Anything to worry about (besides the imminent obsolescence of the Time Capsule)? Thanks.

2

Because of the way sparse disk images and containers work, it’s possible for macOS to reserve a huge amount of disk space but the item will only occupy the amount of space equal to the files it contains.

I see this with Virtual Machine disks also.

What does Get Info say for “on disk” size?

3

Thanks. If it happens again, I’ll try to remember to check that. As I said, the device (and therefore the container and volume) disappeared from Disk Utility shortly after Time Machine finished its backup.