Conflicting used space information when checking the drive..

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.configuration_manage (More info?)

G'Day elloko,

The NTFS file system is a bit like a set of storage boxes -
each of 4kB in size. When a file is stored it is allocated a
whole number of boxes, even though the last box may be
almost empty.

When you look at properties, you see the total number
of boxes allocated, which includes the empty space in
all the "last boxes" (this empty space is no longer available
and cannot be used).

When you select all files, you see the total size of the data
in the files, which does NOT include the empty space(s).

The file system is very efficient at storing large files, but a
huge amount of space is wasted with large numbers of
very small files.

All file systems on modern computer systems suffer from
this problem.

If you can identify certain folders that contain small files then
one solution is to allow compression in those folders so that
they becomes a bit like Zip files. However there can be severe
performance issues since processor and disk access time are
spent zipping and unzipping files as they are accessed, modified
and saved.
--
Regards,
Pat Garard
Australia
_______________________

"elloko" <elloko1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:%23NRYahT5EHA.2124@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
> Strange phenonena,
> I use winxp sp2, when i look on drive c used space (on the icon right
> click properits) i see 6.33GB but when I select all files (including
> hidden) i get 3.69GB, 2.6GB is missing!!! what is going on? can anyone
> assit.
> thanks,
>

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.configuration_manage (More info?)

G'Day again elloko,

I must learn to read messages before I jump in and reply.

If you take (say) drive C:, select all files, right-click and
select properties you will see two figures:
size:
size on disk:
These are the figures I was talking about, and there is
often a discrepancy of 2-3 GB between these and the
figures reported by the Disk properties.

Now, to the best of my knowledge, these (file) figures do
not include System Files - i.e. Page File, Restore Points,
Folder and Master Index space and some temporary files -
but I am not certain of the detail.
--
Regards,
Pat Garard
Australia
_______________________

"elloko" <elloko1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
newsTU12qU5EHA.208@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
> Pat, thanks for the reply. But, I think this is not the case.
>
> 2.6GB missing is much more than a poor management of the NT file system.
>
> I have checked these phenomena on several computers (winxp sp2) and got
> similar results this is definitely not suppose to happen.
>
> Pat, consider worst case scenario. I have ~24,000 files in drive c. If
> each one loose 4KB than the overall "waste" will be 24,000*4KB = 96MB by
> adding fragmentation factor of 2 I get ~200MB, this is the difference I
> expected but, 2.6GB is simlpy too much. What do you think? It's doesn't
> make any sense.
>
> elloko
>
>
> "Pat Garard" <apgarardATbigpondDOTnetDOTau> wrote in message
> news:exCOFZU5EHA.936@TK2MSFTNGP12.phx.gbl...
>> G'Day elloko,
>>
>> The NTFS file system is a bit like a set of storage boxes -
>> each of 4kB in size. When a file is stored it is allocated a
>> whole number of boxes, even though the last box may be
>> almost empty.
>>
>> When you look at properties, you see the total number
>> of boxes allocated, which includes the empty space in
>> all the "last boxes" (this empty space is no longer available
>> and cannot be used).
>>
>> When you select all files, you see the total size of the data
>> in the files, which does NOT include the empty space(s).
>>
>> The file system is very efficient at storing large files, but a
>> huge amount of space is wasted with large numbers of
>> very small files.
>>
>> All file systems on modern computer systems suffer from
>> this problem.
>>
>> If you can identify certain folders that contain small files then
>> one solution is to allow compression in those folders so that
>> they becomes a bit like Zip files. However there can be severe
>> performance issues since processor and disk access time are
>> spent zipping and unzipping files as they are accessed, modified
>> and saved.
>> --
>> Regards,
>> Pat Garard
>> Australia
>> _______________________
>>
>> "elloko" <elloko1@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:%23NRYahT5EHA.2124@TK2MSFTNGP15.phx.gbl...
>>> Strange phenonena,
>>> I use winxp sp2, when i look on drive c used space (on the icon right
>>> click properits) i see 6.33GB but when I select all files (including
>>> hidden) i get 3.69GB, 2.6GB is missing!!! what is going on? can anyone
>>> assit.
>>> thanks,
>>>
>>
>>
>
>