Propertiers of items and folders

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark Godfrey
  • Start date Start date
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Mark Godfrey

I right clicked a folder that has many subfolders and items in it. When I
went to properties to see the size it said 26.9 and then it also says "size
on disks" 54.6. Why are they 2 numbers so different and all? Doesn't make
any since and seems like there could be wasted spce in there somewhere. TIA.
 
I right clicked a folder that has many subfolders and items in it. When I
went to properties to see the size it said 26.9 and then it also says "size
on disks" 54.6. Why are they 2 numbers so different and all? Doesn't make
any since and seems like there could be wasted spce in there somewhere. TIA.
Click to expand...

Mark, hard drive storage is divided up into small pieces. For example,
4k clusters are common on an XP drive using XP. Sometimes files are
smaller than that storage "piece" and that results in what's known as
"slack space." For example a 1k file will occupy one 4k cluster with 3k
of slack space.

Windows Explorer shows you the actual size of the file or folder. And it
shows the space occupied. The difference between the two is your slack
space. If you check a few different folders, you'll probably find that
ratio of roughly 1:2 that you're seeing in this one folder will vary.

Sharon F
MS MVP
[Windows XP - Shell/User]
 
But then it seems it waste space. This is a NTFS file system and I thought
these handle files and their respective sizes better. Any fix for this or
anything? Thanks.
Sharon F said:
I right clicked a folder that has many subfolders and items in it. When I
went to properties to see the size it said 26.9 and then it also says "size
on disks" 54.6. Why are they 2 numbers so different and all? Doesn't make
any since and seems like there could be wasted spce in there somewhere. TIA.
Click to expand...

Mark, hard drive storage is divided up into small pieces. For example,
4k clusters are common on an XP drive using XP. Sometimes files are
smaller than that storage "piece" and that results in what's known as
"slack space." For example a 1k file will occupy one 4k cluster with 3k
of slack space.

Windows Explorer shows you the actual size of the file or folder. And it
shows the space occupied. The difference between the two is your slack
space. If you check a few different folders, you'll probably find that
ratio of roughly 1:2 that you're seeing in this one folder will vary.

Sharon F
MS MVP
[Windows XP - Shell/User]
Click to expand...
 
Sorry, there is no fix. This is basic drive geometry and it is how it
has always worked. You just didn't get the read out in properties about
size on disk like you do now. The same thing would occur with a drive
formatted with FAT32. NTFS does make more efficient use of larger hard
drives than FAT32 (capable of using smaller clusters on larger drives)
and it is more robust than FAT32 in regards to how it indexes the files.

Sharon F
MS MVP
[Windows XP - Shell/User]

But then it seems it waste space. This is a NTFS file system and I thought
these handle files and their respective sizes better. Any fix for this or
anything? Thanks.
Sharon F said:
I right clicked a folder that has many subfolders and items in it. When I
went to properties to see the size it said 26.9 and then it also says "size
on disks" 54.6. Why are they 2 numbers so different and all? Doesn't make
any since and seems like there could be wasted spce in there somewhere. TIA.
Click to expand...

Mark, hard drive storage is divided up into small pieces. For example,
4k clusters are common on an XP drive using XP. Sometimes files are
smaller than that storage "piece" and that results in what's known as
"slack space." For example a 1k file will occupy one 4k cluster with 3k
of slack space.

Windows Explorer shows you the actual size of the file or folder. And it
shows the space occupied. The difference between the two is your slack
space. If you check a few different folders, you'll probably find that
ratio of roughly 1:2 that you're seeing in this one folder will vary.

Sharon F
MS MVP
[Windows XP - Shell/User]
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
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