chkdsk reports: What is "in use by the system." ?

[_dv]

I have two identical drives (same manufacturer and model number) set
up on the same controller, with same formatting. One is drive U:, one
is V:. All files on the drive are identical (did bit-by-bit compares
with Beyond Compare). System restore is turned off for both drives.
Recycle bin is empty.

I was surprised to see that the two drives differ in the amount of
available space. Runnng chkdsk turned up two differences:
1: the amount of space used by 'indexes'
2: the amount of space "in use by the system."

What are those numbers about?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ref:

U:
293025568 KB total disk space.
291694340 KB in 9199 files.
5596 KB in 3359 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
87488 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
1238144 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
73256392 total allocation units on disk.
309536 allocation units available on disk.

V:
293025568 KB total disk space.
291694352 KB in 9200 files.
6440 KB in 3359 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
170072 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
1154704 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
73256392 total allocation units on disk.
288676 allocation units available on disk.

 

[Ano Nym]

I have two identical drives (same manufacturer and model number) set
up on the same controller, with same formatting. One is drive U:, one
is V:. All files on the drive are identical (did bit-by-bit compares
with Beyond Compare). System restore is turned off for both drives.
Recycle bin is empty.

I was surprised to see that the two drives differ in the amount of
available space. Runnng chkdsk turned up two differences:
1: the amount of space used by 'indexes'
2: the amount of space "in use by the system."

What are those numbers about?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

ref:

U:
293025568 KB total disk space.
291694340 KB in 9199 files.
5596 KB in 3359 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
87488 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
1238144 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
73256392 total allocation units on disk.
309536 allocation units available on disk.

V:
293025568 KB total disk space.
291694352 KB in 9200 files.
6440 KB in 3359 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
170072 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
1154704 KB available on disk.

4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
73256392 total allocation units on disk.
288676 allocation units available on disk.

The "file indexing service," which (AFAICR) is turned on by default,
indexes all files on a hard drive by running n the background. Many
recommend that, unless you do a lot of searching, you turn this service
off. You can either disable it on a per-disk basis (from the disk's
"properties" tab) or remove the service entirely, from Add/Remove
Windows Components.

I have no answer for why one of these allegedly identical disks has a
different index structure, but perhaps because the service runs in the
background, if one disk is typically accessed more than the other, the
indexing on the 2 disks is probably out of sync -- not that that should
matter at all.

 

[_dv]

The "file indexing service," which (AFAICR) is turned on by default,
indexes all files on a hard drive by running n the background. Many
recommend that, unless you do a lot of searching, you turn this service
off. You can either disable it on a per-disk basis (from the disk's
"properties" tab) or remove the service entirely, from Add/Remove
Windows Components.

I have no answer for why one of these allegedly identical disks has a
different index structure, but perhaps because the service runs in the
background, if one disk is typically accessed more than the other, the
indexing on the 2 disks is probably out of sync -- not that that should
matter at all.

Good observation about the indexing service. But I disabled it and it
didn't make a lot of difference. So I reformatted one of the drives.
Surprise...the 'in use by system' count is still high, as is 'occupied
by the log file.'

U: After reformat:
293025568 KB total disk space.
4 KB in 8 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
74928 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
292950636 KB available on disk.

Now I must find out what both of those are ('in use' and 'log file').
Surely someone knows this?