Most of the difference you're seeing is due to Time Machine's "Local Snapshots" feature. When Time Machine is turned on but the backup device isn't available, it backs up to the local volume. The space used for these local snapshots is counted as "in use" by Disk Utility and System Information, but not the Finder (see the Disk Space considerations section of this article). While the space for backup actually is in use, it'll be freed automatically when needed (i.e. when the volume gets above 80% full), so the Finder counts it as being available.
In your particular case, the space System Information lists as being used for "Backups", 98.36GB, is very close to the difference in free space listed by the Finder vs. the other two. The Finder's 206.43GB free - 98.36GB of backups = 108.07GB actually free; compare to System Info's listing of 108.44GB free and Disk Util's 108.31GB. I'm not sure what the rest of the difference is (maybe they looked at the disk at slightly different times? Or they may be counting volume structures a bit differently?), but it's very small.
Finder shows:
- easily, the truth for JHFS+ volume Macintosh HD
- optionally, the truth for mtmfs volume MobileBackups
Hint: with local snapshots enabled in Time Machine, in Finder you can go to /Volumes/MobileBackups then get info.
Results of a one-line command show that for some purposes, MobileBackups is treated as a distant file system:
qlmanage -m disks | grep MobileBackups && mount | grep MobileBackups
As Disk Utility is oriented to local file systems, we'll probably never see MobileBackups as a separate volume in that context. There are degrees of simplification in Disk Utility, even when debug options are chosen.
Thanks @Tetsujin. The listing looked a little screwy so I was a little hesitant to go mucking around with the command-line diskutil. But I ended up doing a
diskutil corestorage list
and then
diskutil corestorage delete [UUID of 50GB Logical Volume Group]
GUI Disk Utility correctly saw the 50 GB of empty space as part of the other Logical Volume Group and I was able to delete it and merge it back in fine.
Best Answer
You probably tried to manipulate a CoreStorage volume with Disk Utility. Core Storage volumes are built after enabling File Vault 2, creating a Fusion Drive or often after updating to Yosemite.
If you don't have a second internal hard disk attached, disk0 is usually mounted to /. In your case disk1 is mounted to / which is a typical hint for Core Storage Volume Group - in case of an internal Fusion Drive disk2 is mounted to / and disk0 and disk1 usually don't appear entering
df -h.Open Terminal and enter
diskutil cs listto get all CoreStorage objects in a tree-like view.Use this comprehensive list of documented and undocumented commands to manipulate your CoreStorage Volume Group.