file size and space used

[Guest]

Hello to all,

I have an interesting situation. I am running windows 2000 server std with
(2) scsi drives configured for soft raid with a mirror.

I have a single partition "C". If you right click on the drive and select
properties to view the space used, it says 20GB. If you then open up the "C"
drive, select all files(made sure system and hidden files were set to show)it
shows a much different output. It says that there is only 7GB used.

I have not seen this before and was hoping if someone might have a
suggestion as to why there is such a difference. I have checked for viruses
and that sort of thing. Did not find anything. Thanks


smorg

 

[Dave Patrick]

Has to do with 'slack space'. Consider that every file and directory listing
(no matter what size) takes up at least one cluster. Slack space is the area
between the end of the file and the end of the cluster. It can be calculated
roughly by taking 1/2 of the drive's allocation unit (cluster size) times
the number of files, this is the average wasted space. If you have a lot of
small files then the wasted space figure could be larger.

From a command prompt at the root of the drive in question;
chkdsk
to find out your cluster size (allocation unit)

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Hello to all,
|
| I have an interesting situation. I am running windows 2000 server std with
| (2) scsi drives configured for soft raid with a mirror.
|
| I have a single partition "C". If you right click on the drive and select
| properties to view the space used, it says 20GB. If you then open up the
"C"
| drive, select all files(made sure system and hidden files were set to
show)it
| shows a much different output. It says that there is only 7GB used.
|
| I have not seen this before and was hoping if someone might have a
| suggestion as to why there is such a difference. I have checked for
viruses
| and that sort of thing. Did not find anything. Thanks
|
|
| smorg

 

[Guest]

Thanks for replying. I'm pretty familiar with cluster sizes and how that can
affect how much wasted space there is. I'm using a 4K cluster size and from
my understanding, smaller sizes have less wasted space.

What I can't understand is how can there be such a difference in sizes
between disk space used and file space used, a difference of 13GB. I also was
wondering, can this affect backups to tape?

 

[Dave Patrick]

I wouldn't think so but check the documentation for your tape device and or
software on how it handles data and compression.

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Thanks for replying. I'm pretty familiar with cluster sizes and how that
can
| affect how much wasted space there is. I'm using a 4K cluster size and
from
| my understanding, smaller sizes have less wasted space.
|
| What I can't understand is how can there be such a difference in sizes
| between disk space used and file space used, a difference of 13GB. I also
was
| wondering, can this affect backups to tape?