DrQ Posted January 28, 2002 Share Posted January 28, 2002 Hi, Can somebody please clear this up for me. When you right click on lets say a folder and go to poroperties, it shows you "size" and "size on disk" .. both with (sometimes slightly) different values. What's the difference between the 2 ?? DrQ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[saint lucifer] Posted January 28, 2002 Share Posted January 28, 2002 The size on disk is the size the files takes up on the disk. The size is what the actual size of the file is. It makes no sense, but that's what it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RavenSBNC Posted January 28, 2002 Share Posted January 28, 2002 That confuses me too. How could a file be a different size then what it takes up on the disk? The important thing I guess is, which is more accurate to use to measure file size? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freeza Posted January 28, 2002 Share Posted January 28, 2002 well since the file system uses different clusters and what not it shows the size as it is on the file system and the size as it is by itself like if you have a FAT32 partition with a 4.00 kb cluster size then it adds a few bytes at the end of whatever file that cant fill up a full 4.00 kb cluster and thats how you get the differences it may add more than that or less or whatever. also depends on if the folder or any files in the folder is compressed (NTFS) after a while of a file not being used its compressed to save space and its showing you the size of it being compressed and the size w/o the "Size" is more accurate. because the size on disk will vary between computers ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aco Veteran Posted January 28, 2002 Veteran Share Posted January 28, 2002 What freeza said is correct. Every file takes up at least 1 cluster. Using the NTFS file system clusters are always 4KB no matter what size the partition is. FAT32 is sort of like a progressive system; for partitions up to 8GB the cluster size is 4KB, from 8-16GB the cluster size is 8KB, from 16-32GB the clustersize is 16KB, over 32GB the cluster size is 32KB. e.g. On a 12GB FAT32 partition: File: Document.txt Size: 3.67 KB Size on disk: 8 KB So, IMHO on your the partition with your OS (or one with many small files) you should use NTFS or FAT32 if less than 8GB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PM5K Posted January 28, 2002 Share Posted January 28, 2002 I'm not sure that the size is what matter, the size on disk is what is actually being used, and that's what most people want to know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crackler Posted January 28, 2002 Share Posted January 28, 2002 :s Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stingray Posted January 28, 2002 Share Posted January 28, 2002 Using the NTFS file system clusters are always 4KB no matter what size the partition is. Not completely true. I have a 7 Gig partition that I converted from FAT32 (8K clusters) to NTFS without specifying cluster size with Partition Magic. Its cluster size is 512K. :o Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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