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[CrudeDiatribe]

I can't repartition my 1 Tb external drive since it's in ex-FAT and don't see myself buying another hard drive immediately, for various reasons. Is there a good backup tool I could/should use where I'd be able to backup to said external drive as it is now?

You can probably create a sparsebundle on the exFat external drive, and Time Machine to that, rather than re-partition.

These instructions for doing it to a fileshare on a Windows computer ought to work:
Setup a Time Machine Backup to a Windows Home Server Share, with the same caveats the author lists.

Alternatively, SuperDuper! or Carbon Copy Cloner can be fairly easily set to clone to a sparse bundle as well. I think Time Machine is a better option for your only backup given that it stores multiple versions of the same file as it changes over time.

 

[The Real Abed]

My bad, really. Just finished reinstalling everything.

I think what happened is that when I first got my Mac I checked how Time Machine worked and necessitated a disk/partition to itself, I thought "meh, later". And never checked again >_>

I can't repartition my 1 Tb external drive since it's in ex-FAT and don't see myself buying another hard drive immediately, for various reasons. Is there a good backup tool I could/should use where I'd be able to backup to said external drive as it is now?

I lost everything about half a dozen times since the early '90s before I finally said "It's time to buy a backup drive". This was 2001. I went right to the store, bought myself a LaCie SilverKeeper and backed up my shit just before the drive died. Haven't lost a single file since. Have owned dozens of hard drives and lost quite a handful. They die all the time. Always be prepared.

In the '90s I had no option. Our PC didn't have some sort of easy plug and play hard drive extension and HDD's were expensive and all we had were floppies so I had no choice. But once FireWire and USB came along and drives came into affordable space...

Look into CrashPlan. It's cheap and has numerous plans available. (Online backup with Time Machine-like features but no pretty restore interface. Still, it's paid for itself. And can be granularly configured to backup anywhere between every minute and every day. And with the unlimited options you can have it keep backups FOREVER.) Or just set up your Time Machine. Don't let it happen again! Anyone. Everyone. This message is for you too. I used to recommend Carbon Copy Cloner too and still do, but now it's not free anymore, but still, it's cheap and worth it. There's three separate backup options in this very paragraph. I use all three. You should use at least one.

 

[chiQ]

When I got my first Mac and worked out Time Machine I went out and bought an external drive. I have zero sympathy with people who lose their data when such a cheap and easy solution is right there for you to use.

 

[Jubern]

Well gee, sorry. I know I screwed up by formatting the entire drive to ex-FAT, at the time I knew nothing about the format limitations nor how Time Machine (or OS X altogether for that matter) worked. But I don't really won't to have another hard drive hanging out of my MBA. Stupid as they may sometime sound, people have their reasons.

The help is much appreciated guys!
CrudeDiatribe, I've been trying what you linked, but entering the Terminal command doesn't seem to be enough to make the image appear in Time Machine. Instead I get this:
"Usage: tmutil setdestination [-a] mount_point
tmutil setdestination [-ap] afp://user[ass]@host/share"

Any idea?

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

CrudeDiatribe, I've been trying what you linked, but entering the Terminal command doesn't seem to be enough to make the image appear in Time Machine. Instead I get this:
"Usage: tmutil setdestination [-a] mount_point
tmutil setdestination [-ap] afp://user[ass]@host/share"

Any idea?

So you've got a HDD, with a single ExFat partition, called MonkeySnot. It's mounted to /Volumes/MonkeySnot.

On this, you've created/saved a sparsebundle from Disk Utility, per the linked instructions, called no_more_monkeys.sparsebundle.

You've double-clicked on this sparsebundle to mount the volume called NinjaMonkey?

NinjaMonkey is your intended backup, as it's a Time Machine compatible HFS+, not the ExFat MonkeySnot HDD.

sudo tmutil setdestination /Volumes/NinjaMonkey

Edit: testing on a HDD partition I just made.
Edit2: created sparsebundle on ExFat partition and set it as a TimeMachine bundle. Just waiting for my Mac to figure out to use it and not a share on my Mac Pro 400km away.
Edit3: Works fine.

 

[The Real Abed]

Well gee, sorry. I know I screwed up by formatting the entire drive to ex-FAT, at the time I knew nothing about the format limitations nor how Time Machine (or OS X altogether for that matter) worked. But I don't really won't to have another hard drive hanging out of my MBA. Stupid as they may sometime sound, people have their reasons.

We're just having a laugh and giving you some shit.

Also, Time Machine will keep local backups if the drive isn't connected. And if you have a second machine lying around you can use that.

Alternatively either A) use CCC or SD! and have it set up to clone when you connect the drive so you can just do it whenever you sit down to have the drive connected. Or B) sign up for CrashPlan, even if you only use the lowest end plans it's good to at least backup stuff that you can't duplicate. The lowest end is 10GB for $3 a month or less than $100 for 4 years. Their prices get lower if you pay for larger chunks. (For instance I paid $420 or so for 4 years of INFINITE space on a FAMILY PLAN -- 10 computers. The non-family plan is only $190 for 4 years or $6 a month. Which was more than 50% off the price it'd be if I paid monthly.) Surely the price of a couple coffee's or pizza's is chump change for peace of mind. (And you won't even need an external drive. You can use the drive for actual file storage instead.)

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

Or B) sign up for CrashPlan

Backblaze in another option (haven't used either— I used to use Mozy until they got rid of their unlimited storage; my dad and I built our own off-site backup solution, so now we use that).

 

[jts]

Cross posting to see if I can get some help.

Shit FUCK. My MBP slowed down and froze out of nowhere, now it doesn't boot. Shows that forbidden sign.

I'm scared. Custom FusionDrive means this will be a bitch. No recent backup made. I'm so dumb.

Hold me GAF.

Additional info:

This is what the screen shows up:

I have a Mac mini but I found out the hard way that target disk mode WON'T work because I use a custom fusion drive. Damn.

That's also my main concern about recovering my data.

I will now try to test the RAM chips. Could it be that?

Any guru to give me some pointers?

 

[cyberheater]

because I use a custom fusion drive. Damn.

I'm sorry I can't help you. I think you are fucked.

But you used a custom fusion drive with the inherent increased risk of data failure and you didn't do regular backups. SMH.

 

[jts]

I'm sorry I can't help you. I think you are fucked.

But you used a custom fusion drive with the inherent increased risk of data failure and you didn't do regular backups. SMH.

Fair enough.

But I won't accept defeat easily. I think all my data is there. I installed this "drive" with a brand spanking new SSD and HDD 6 months ago.

I just have to retrieve the data somehow. I wonder if I can connect any of the physical drives to a cradle and don't mess up the data volume. I have no idea what kind of file structure awaits me, or how CoreStorage organizes that shit.

I guess I'll google intensely (on my friggin iPad).

 

[MilesWebber]

Anyone else using Mavericks? It's smooooth so far.

 

[cyberheater]

I guess I'll google intensely (on my friggin iPad).

I've googled and couldn't much on recovering from your situation. There are paid for apps that say they can help but that is risky and you need to have a working installation of OSX to run the program.

I hope the data wasn't that important to you. I think your best bet is to chalk it up to experience and repair any hardware failures (hard/SSD drives) and restore from your last backup.

Let us know how you get on.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

Any guru to give me some pointers?

Boot off the same media you used to make the Fusion drive in the first place and see what the diskutil command line tool can tell you about the physical health of the component volumes and the filesystem.

 

[jts]

Am I understanding this correctly and the CoreStorage thingy just crapped out? Or is one of the disks damaged (it would have come out of nowhere literally).

What happens if I take the disks and plug them via USB?

 

[The Real Abed]

Backblaze in another option (haven't used either— I used to use Mozy until they got rid of their unlimited storage; my dad and I built our own off-site backup solution, so now we use that).

I can't find pricing on their website but Crashplan is much cheaper when you put it on paper. Does BB have unlimited storage for that price? Remember that my pricing was for the family plan.

Other than that the two services are pretty much identical. BB just seems more polished. Both have mobile apps too. CP also uses Java for its back end for some reason. Though I chose Crashplan after exhaustive research. At least they're both much better than Carbonite.

Doesn't matter what you use. Just use something.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

I'm not sure the GUI Disk Utility is yet equipped to cope with Fusion Drives, which is why I suggested the command line diskutil, which is what you used to build the drive in the first place. You will have to read up on it.

What happens if I take the disks and plug them via USB?

If you plug them into a Mac running 10.8.3, they should be built into their Fusion Drive, since the identifiers are on the disks themselves. May have to use diskutil to mount them properly. I would explore using diskutil while they're still in the Mac first, though.

If you expect to be able to read the disks each on their own, I wouldn't, as the filesystem is built on top of the CoreStorage volume.

Testdisk may be worth a look, and ddrescue may be able to clone the disk(s) to new hardware since it's a block-level copy.

Does BB have unlimited storage for that price? Remember that my pricing was for the family plan.

Yes, though I think it's priced per computer.

 

[jts]

First of all, thanks for your help so far.

I'm not sure the GUI Disk Utility is yet equipped to cope with Fusion Drives, which is why I suggested the command line diskutil, which is what you used to build the drive in the first place. You will have to read up on it.

Well the computer stopped booting into recovery mode altogether now and just goes to Internet Recovery, so there's that. I know I can create a bootable ML USB and I will look into it tomorrow.

If you plug them into a Mac running 10.8.3, they should be built into their Fusion Drive, since the identifiers are on the disks themselves. May have to use diskutil to mount them properly. I would explore using diskutil while they're still in the Mac first, though.

If you expect to be able to read the disks each on their own, I wouldn't, as the filesystem is built on top of the CoreStorage volume.

I've tried to mount the mechanical drive and couldn't. Do I need to plug both?

It wouldn't mount or show in diskutil GUI.

I had Data Rescue 3 get me out of a tough spot in the past but now it just couldn't see it.

Testdisk may be worth a look, and ddrescue may be able to clone the disk(s) to new hardware since it's a block-level copy.

I just don't now how to mount a drive that is composed of 2 physical units with OS X CoreStorage, because obviously USB enclosures can't emulate that and target disk mode doesn't work with it either.

Isn't there some rescue software that ignore partitions errors and such and just tries to read whatever data is salvageable?

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

Well the computer stopped booting into recovery mode altogether now and just goes to Internet Recovery, so there's that.[...]

Sounds like your HDD is broken.

I've tried to mount the mechanical drive and couldn't. Do I need to plug both?

Yes, you would have to have all components present to get the Fusion Drive up. From everything you've said at this point I doubt it will work. If you only had one of the parts plugged in, the hardware should still be visible in diskutil ('diskutil list').

Isn't there some rescue software that ignore partitions errors and such and just tries to read whatever data is salvageable?

Photorec, from the testdisk/ddrescue guy. Despite its name it will work on a variety of files. The problem is that everything is unsorted. You'll just have file1-600000.whatever in a fairly flat directory structure.

I would first run ddrescue on the HDD to a blank disk/image of sufficient size, then try rescuing the files there/restoring the FD to functionality, etc.

There is a chance that ddrescue would get you a copy of your drive that works well enough that the Fusion Drive can be fixed (fsck/diskutil repair) enough for you to get your files off.

FWIW, I do most of my disk rescuing on PCs I boot into Ubuntu live CDs (well, USB sticks). Disconnect the internal drive if it's important (I've rescued a drive onto a co-worker's "C drive" (whatever that is) instead of the intended disk by accident).

I just don't now how to mount a drive that is composed of 2 physical units with OS X CoreStorage, because obviously USB enclosures can't emulate that and target disk mode doesn't work with it either.

The following is my understanding and it may be wrong: The Fusion Drive/any CoreStorage volume group is set up by recording the drives' UDID's to some place in the header of the physical volumes, like the partition map. It shouldn't matter how the drives are attached to the Mac so long as that information is passed through the connection. A multi-drive enclosure may or may not allow that, depending on what it does. Once all the drives are connected, telling diskutil to mount the FD by name might bring it up.

I don't have any method of testing my supposition; my only FD equipped Mac is in use.

 

[chiQ]

Cross posting to see if I can get some help.


Additional info:

This is what the screen shows up:

I have a Mac mini but I found out the hard way that target disk mode WON'T work because I use a custom fusion drive. Damn.

That's also my main concern about recovering my data.

I will now try to test the RAM chips. Could it be that?

Any guru to give me some pointers?

This is what happened to me. My SSD was dead. Try command + F, right after the boot sound, and check the drive out. If nothing works, i.e. you get told that you don't have permissions on the drive, or checks go on forever, then you're in the same place I was just over a week ago.

 

[jts]

You are correct, and you are a genius and a scholar.

The volume totally auto mounts on my Mac mini when I connect both drives through different USBs!

Life saved!

I tried to copy the volume over to a new external I bought via Diskutil and it rejects that idea (resources something) and ejects the volume.

So I'm just copying over manually my stuff, starting by my monster user folder (600GB out of 700GB used space, mostly trash).

What else, applications folder?

I will do some cleaning first as I'm going SSD solo (250GB), no more custom funny business. Then I'll use migration assistant. That's cool right? Maybe I'll even go Mavericks since I'm having all this trouble.

What a rush. Thank you CrudeDiatribe and thank you cyberheater.

edit: my post was supposed to go before the previous one but I'm too slow typing on my iPad Thank you for the input too chiQ. But I think I'm getting a bit more of luck than you. My stuff is copying over.

My convoluted life-saving setup, for posterity:

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

The volume totally auto mounts on my Mac mini when I connect both drives through different USBs!

Excellent!

I tried to copy the volume over to a new external I bought via Diskutil and it rejects that idea (resources something) and ejects the volume.

So I'm just copying over manually my stuff, starting by my monster user folder (600GB out of 700GB used space, mostly trash).

What else, applications folder?

I assume you're hitting whatever's broken when you try and do everything all at once. You could try rsync --ignore-errors or ditto. Still might dump the disk like Disk Utility though.

I wouldn't bother with Applications unless you have stuff you can't reinstall on the new machine for some reason (and some stuff like that from Adobe, must be reinstalled).

Maybe just do the following in terminal to make a list of your stuff:
ls -l /Volumes/ShittedUpFD/Applications > ~/my_old_apps.txt

(Can also select everything in Applications, copy it, and paste it into TextEdit).

Nice set up, have done similar when rescuing PCs' HDDs.

 

[Estocolmo]

Is it enough to make a time machine backup after you reformat your harddrive to go back to your previous setttings?

 

[IronBubbles]

I'm bringing my iMac in tomorrow to replace the HDD. What's the easiest/quickest way to wipe it so nobody takes my data, just to be sure?

 

[Popstar]

I'm bringing my iMac in tomorrow to replace the HDD. What's the easiest/quickest way to wipe it so nobody takes my data, just to be sure?

Disk Utility

Select your disk and then select Erase.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

Is it enough to make a time machine backup after you reformat your harddrive to go back to your previous setttings?

Like before the wipe? You'd want to look into using Migration Assistant after the reformat to access your old backup. If it's only a 'maybe', then pointing Time Machine at the old backup and clicking the right options should continue it and let you go backwards past the reformat.

What's the easiest/quickest way to wipe it so nobody takes my data, just to be sure?

Disk Utility
Select your disk and then select Erase.

Click 'security options' before you do if you actually want to prevent someone from using the aforementioned photorec or similar to read the files you didn't actually erase by clicking 'erase'.

FYI, zeroing a drive takes a while.

 

[Estocolmo]

Like before the wipe? You'd want to look into using Migration Assistant after the reformat to access your old backup. If it's only a 'maybe', then pointing Time Machine at the old backup and clicking the right options should continue it and let you go backwards past the reformat..

Im a Mac noob. Ive had my MacBook for 4 years and it is a bit slow and can act strange sometimes. I was recommended to make at least one reformat to freshen things up. Of course I want to keep my desktop like it was previously, but I just want to freshen things up.

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

Im a Mac noob. Ive had my MacBook for 4 years and it is a bit slow and can act strange sometimes. I was recommended to make at least one reformat to freshen things up. Of course I want to keep my desktop like it was previously, but I just want to freshen things up.

Yeah, use Migration Assistant after the reformat to restore your stuff. Bear in mind that you can migrate whatever is causing the slowness/weirdness, depending on what it is. There are actual avenues for troubleshooting such things rather than the nuke & pave approach, but it's worth a shot.

 

[G-Unit]

guys dont use razer synapse 2.0 on mac. Sadly it´s a POS

 

[Mammoth Jones]

Heya OSX users. I've been using Trillian IM chat for a long time and it's served me well up until now. But I'm wondering if there's a better multi-client chat app for the mac.

I use AIM, GChat, FB & Skype.

Any apps that incorporate all of those well for OSX (and ideally windows/iOS/Android)

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

Adium for the text-based chatting.

Why do you want to use one app on multiple platforms? Use the best on each.

 

[mrkgoo]

Yeah, use Migration Assistant after the reformat to restore your stuff. Bear in mind that you can migrate whatever is causing the slowness/weirdness, depending on what it is. There are actual avenues for troubleshooting such things rather than the nuke & pave approach, but it's worth a shot.

There's an inherent difference between setup assistant and migration assistant. Setup assistant is the one that pops up when you first boot your Mac. IF you choose to ignore it, it will create a new user ID, so subsequent migration assistants will actually have new user IDs. If you use setup assistant to restore from backup, it will copy over the user id of the old user.

Generally this is not an issue, but you MIGHT run into some permission errors.


Also, JTS: been following your tribulations, glad you could resolve some of it, and sorry I couldn't help. I have a fusion drive also, but one done by Apple. Would the inherent risk of one of the drives failing cause me such issues too? Or is it something inherent to a user created one?

 

[CrudeDiatribe]

There's an inherent difference between setup assistant and migration assistant. [...]

I've only installed ML from scratch once, so this didn't lodge in my brain. Thanks!

Would the inherent risk of one of the drives failing cause me such issues too? Or is it something inherent to a user created one?

The ones from Apple are no different than the DIY ones. Keep good backups.

 

[mrkgoo]

I've only installed ML from scratch once, so this didn't lodge in my brain. Thanks!



The ones from Apple are no different than the DIY ones. Keep good backups.

Yah, don't have to tell me twice!

I don't have a cloud solution, but I've been upgrading HD for a few years. Each time, I keep the old one as a backup of that date.

Of course, I also have time machine backup as a bare minimum, but I don't 100 % trust it, so when it fills up, I typically do the same thing and get a new drive and keep the old one as a dated backup.

And the most important data, my photos, I manually backup to another external periodically and keep off site.

Anyway, so if either the SSd it HD in a fusion setup fail, obviously whole thing goes down, but is it extra hard to recover data as jts has shown?

 

[hateradio]

Anyone here have a nice list of good freeware applications? My brother was looking for something like IrfanView, but it doesn't exist for Mac. XnViewMP is an alternative, but it's still in a beta stage.

 

[Popstar]

Anyone here have a nice list of good freeware applications? My brother was looking for something like IrfanView, but it doesn't exist for Mac. XnViewMP is an alternative, but it's still in a beta stage.

http://www.pure-mac.com

http://alternativeto.net/software/irfanview/?platform=mac&license=free

 

[jts]

Re: my problem.

Yesterday I spent all day saving my stuff to an external and reducing my OS drive footprint to 250GB, so I can install it solely on my SSD.

Today I finally erased my CoreStorage unit, or my FusionDrive.

And I learned that my hard drives weren't faulty or anything.

I think that my hard drive cable just broke. Now that they are split, my Mac doesn't detect the Hard Drive in the Hard Drive place but it does detect the hard drive on the optical bay caddy.

Sigh...

It's not a crazy big deal and it seams like I luckily may have avoided data loss. But what an odd thing. And the Fusion Drive just completely threw me off. Totally unrelated problem.

Off to eBay to find an HDD cable. Meanwhile, installing OSX on the SSD on the optical thingy.

 

[The Real Abed]

Of course, I also have time machine backup as a bare minimum, but I don't 100 % trust it, so when it fills up, I typically do the same thing and get a new drive and keep the old one as a dated backup.

I think I'm about to give up on Time Machine again. All day it's been giving me "cannot connect" errors and failing. The last successful backup was last night at midnight and it's supposed to backup every hour. Useless piece of shit. I thought it was fixed by now but even in Mavericks it's just as bad as it was. (And don't say it's because it's a beta, no, it's always been this shitty for me.)

Guess I'll stick to my Carbon Copy Clone and my CrashPlan online backup. Both never fail me. Ever. *sigh* I want to love Time Machine. I love it's interface. But goddamn. So inconsistent and error prone. This is a network backup of course. So flakey. I mean TM keeps a local backup so it keeps backing up, but if it can't even connect to submit my changes to the server then what's the point? So much hassle.

Edit: Baleted! Gone. Too much trouble. So buggy. Really sad. If only CrashPlan's backup restoring UI had Time Machine's UI.

 

[jts]

Um, so, is it even possible or not to transfer my stuff over from a non-bootable, non-time machine backup?

Live, having a copy of the folders and transferring it. I saved /users, /Library, /System, /Applications.

I've done it with the users already. I transferred my user, then created a user with that name, linked to the folder and pronto.

The other folders seem to be more tricky.

I think I've done this once... or was it from the bootable original disk. Can't remember.

edit: okay disregard, I think I'ma gonna start fresh. My Keychain moved over, I have iCloud. I'm good.

 

[The Real Abed]

Um, so, is it even possible or not to transfer my stuff over from a non-bootable, non-time machine backup?

Live, having a copy of the folders and transferring it. I saved /users, /Library, /System, /Applications.

I've done it with the users already. I transferred my user, then created a user with that name, linked to the folder and pronto.

The other folders seem to be more tricky.

I think I've done this once... or was it from the bootable original disk. Can't remember.

edit: okay disregard, I think I'ma gonna start fresh. My Keychain moved over, I have iCloud. I'm good.

Migration Assistant should recognize those folders if they're at the root of a drive. If not you can very easily move stuff manually. Especially User stuff. You can always pick and choose and move stuff in. In fact you could just replace the new home folder contents with the old one. (Make sure to copy to the drive first then delete the folders and move old ones into place. Then reboot.) Or just pull over what you want to keep. The important stuff would be settings held in the Library folders. (The one in the Home folder is probably invisible)

 

[jts]

Migration Assistant should recognize those folders if they're at the root of a drive. If not you can very easily move stuff manually. Especially User stuff. You can always pick and choose and move stuff in. In fact you could just replace the new home folder contents with the old one. (Make sure to copy to the drive first then delete the folders and move old ones into place. Then reboot.) Or just pull over what you want to keep. The important stuff would be settings held in the Library folders. (The one in the Home folder is probably invisible)

I tried to use migration assistant but it didn't recognise the hard drive. Maybe I didn't give it enough time or something. I thought it was because it wasn't a bootable copy (hence, not recognised as an OSX installation).

However, since I moved my user folder correctly, I'm happy. Pretty much all settings and userdata that I need are there or in iCloud.

And it was also a way of purging all the old crapware that builds over the years. Now I'll just cherry pick what to install back.

Anyway, my computer is back and running really well, Mavericks at that. All in all, I'm thankful and grateful. Already assigned a disk to Time Machine too, so I'm good.

 

[kennah]

Re: my problem.

Yesterday I spent all day saving my stuff to an external and reducing my OS drive footprint to 250GB, so I can install it solely on my SSD.

Today I finally erased my CoreStorage unit, or my FusionDrive.

And I learned that my hard drives weren't faulty or anything.

I think that my hard drive cable just broke. Now that they are split, my Mac doesn't detect the Hard Drive in the Hard Drive place but it does detect the hard drive on the optical bay caddy.

Sigh...

It's not a crazy big deal and it seams like I luckily may have avoided data loss. But what an odd thing. And the Fusion Drive just completely threw me off. Totally unrelated problem.

Off to eBay to find an HDD cable. Meanwhile, installing OSX on the SSD on the optical thingy.

http://www.powerbookmedic.com/

I found them to be quite good and they don't charge ridiculous shipping and handling charges. Had to get the same cable from them.

 

[The Real Abed]

I just noticed I have both X11 and XQuartz installed. I don't know how. I should remove one of them. How would I go about properly uninstalling both and just reinstalling the XQuartz one as I believe it's the replacement for X11.

 

[Hitokage]

I just noticed I have both X11 and XQuartz installed. I don't know how. I should remove one of them. How would I go about properly uninstalling both and just reinstalling the XQuartz one as I believe it's the replacement for X11.

Check if X11 isn't just a link/referrer to XQuartz.

 

[hateradio]

http://www.pure-mac.com

http://alternativeto.net/software/ir...c&license=free

Pure Mac isn't exclusive to free applications, though. And alternative.to is only okay from my previous experience.

Guess I'll just tell him to try XnViewMP.

 

[The Real Abed]

Check if X11 isn't just a link/referrer to XQuartz.

It appears as an app. But it's only 180K and when I open it OS X tells me X11 is no longer available and points me to a link where I assume it tells me to download XQuartz instead. So I guess I can delete it. It's probably leftover from a long time ago.

Edit: On second thought, I'll leave it. Its creation date is more recent than XQuartz's is which is odd. Though I'd easily uninstall both and reinstall the one if I knew which files to remove just to make sure. I never even use it except very occasionally.