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extreme - 05 Apr 2004 12:32 GMT

my drive is a fat32 partition drive and im using win xip, when i right click
one of my folder and choose properties it says the size is 180MB but the
size on disk is 368, so basically it's 180MB but it took up 368MB of my hdd
space right??

is it something to do with the sector allocation?? is there a way to fix it
or do something about it?? so that it dont take up twice as much space as it
is??

thanks.

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Tim Slattery - 05 Apr 2004 14:09 GMT

>my drive is a fat32 partition drive and im using win xip, when i right click
>one of my folder and choose properties it says the size is 180MB but the
>size on disk is 368, so basically it's 180MB but it took up 368MB of my hdd
>space right??

It can happen if you're using FAT32 on an extremely large partition
(and it sounds like you've got a GIGANTIC partition). In order to
handle very large partitions, FAT32 has to use very large clusters. A
cluster in the smallest amount of space that can be allocated to any
file. If your partition is using 32KB clusters, then even a 1KB file
will have 32KB of disk space reserved for it. So if a folder on a
partition using large clusters contains lots of small files, it can
take up lots of extra room.

Signature

Tim Slattery
MS MVP(DTS)
Slattery_T@bls.gov

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extreme - 05 Apr 2004 19:02 GMT

> >my drive is a fat32 partition drive and im using win xip, when i right click
> >one of my folder and choose properties it says the size is 180MB but the
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> It can happen if you're using FAT32 on an extremely large partition
> (and it sounds like you've got a GIGANTIC partition). In order to

ur right about that, i got a 111gb hdd, meant to be 120gb though hehe

> handle very large partitions, FAT32 has to use very large clusters. A
> cluster in the smallest amount of space that can be allocated to any
> file. If your partition is using 32KB clusters, then even a 1KB file
> will have 32KB of disk space reserved for it. So if a folder on a
> partition using large clusters contains lots of small files, it can
> take up lots of extra room.

damn i didnt know that, so "folder contains lots of small files" will likely
to have this prob....icic thanks a lot hey

so the solution might be partition my drive into few smaller partitions??
or re-set the cluster to something smaller than 32kb is it? btw whats
the smallest cluster size it can be set to?

thanks.

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Tim Slattery - 05 Apr 2004 21:12 GMT

>> It can happen if you're using FAT32 on an extremely large partition
>> (and it sounds like you've got a GIGANTIC partition). In order to
>
>ur right about that, i got a 111gb hdd, meant to be 120gb though hehe

Remember that the manufacturer is quoting the disk size in decimal
gigabytes (1GB = 10**9=1,000,000,000 bytes), but the software uses
binary gigabytes (1GB = 2**30=1,073,741,824). So your 120GB disk
becomes 111.76 (binary)GB to the software.

>damn i didnt know that, so "folder contains lots of small files" will likely
>to have this prob....icic thanks a lot hey

>so the solution might be partition my drive into few smaller partitions??
>or re-set the cluster to something smaller than 32kb is it? btw whats
>the smallest cluster size it can be set to?

Yes, smaller partitions have smaller clusters, and therefore waste
less space. Look here
(http://storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/file/partFAT32.html) for a
discussion of cluster size versus partition size. Your 111GB partition
probably uses 64KB clusters.

Signature

Tim Slattery
MS MVP(DTS)
Slattery_T@bls.gov

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extreme - 05 Apr 2004 22:24 GMT

since it's that wasteful i will format my hdd and set the cluster size to a
very small value (partitionning it is my 2nd preference actually). is there
a min cluster size i can set to? is there any tradeoff if i set it too
small?

if my cluster size is 32kb, and i have 2 files which is 1kb each, then it
will take up 64kb of my hdd right, becoz they use 2 clusters.

the 2 files cant share the same cluster is becoz each cluster only has one
address to reference. and if the 2 files use the same cluster (reference to
same cluster address), then when i open one of the files the data in it will
contain the data of other file, am i correct?? therefore 2 files cant share
a same cluster....??

thanks.

> >> It can happen if you're using FAT32 on an extremely large partition
> >> (and it sounds like you've got a GIGANTIC partition). In order to
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
> discussion of cluster size versus partition size. Your 111GB partition
> probably uses 64KB clusters.

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Jeff Richards - 05 Apr 2004 22:58 GMT

> since it's that wasteful i will format my hdd and set the cluster size to a
> very small value (partitionning it is my 2nd preference actually). is there
> a min cluster size i can set to? is there any tradeoff if i set it too
> small?

As the cluster size is reduced and the partition size stays the same, the
number of clusters must increase. If the number of clusters is too large
some utilities such as Scandisk stop working. Also, the FAT gets larger and
some disk operations get slower.

> if my cluster size is 32kb, and i have 2 files which is 1kb each, then it
> will take up 64kb of my hdd right, becoz they use 2 clusters.

Yes.

> the 2 files cant share the same cluster is becoz each cluster only has one
> address to reference. and if the 2 files use the same cluster (reference to
> same cluster address), then when i open one of the files the data in it will
> contain the data of other file, am i correct?? therefore 2 files cant share
> a same cluster....??

Yes. The two files would have the same address, so you could open either
file and see the same (combined) contents.

One way to avoid the wasted space of small files with large clusters is to
combine small files into one large file using a compression or packing
utility. If you configure it the right way then using a compressed file is
similar to using a folder - you double click to open it, then drag files in
and out. However, the files cannot be seen from other programs until you
have dragged them out to another folder. I organise my icon files like
this.

Signature

Jeff Richards
MS MVP W95/W98

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Michael - 15 May 2004 11:05 GMT

> >my drive is a fat32 partition drive and im using win xip, when i right click
> >one of my folder and choose properties it says the size is 180MB but the
[quoted text clipped - 9 lines]
> partition using large clusters contains lots of small files, it can
> take up lots of extra room.

Completely irrelevant.
His 180mb file should take up no more than (180mb + 32kb) of space.

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Jeff Richards - 15 May 2004 23:30 GMT

It's a folder, not a file. Every file in the folder could consume up to
32Kb extra space, easily accounting for the total size difference.

Signature

Jeff Richards
MS MVP W95/W98

> > >my drive is a fat32 partition drive and im using win xip, when i right
> click
[quoted text clipped - 14 lines]
> Completely irrelevant.
> His 180mb file should take up no more than (180mb + 32kb) of space.

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