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My SanDisk USB flash drive shows that 43GB is used when I just copied a 10GB folder after formatting
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I recently bought a SanDisk 128GB USB flash drive.
And after formatting the USB flash drive in exFAT format, I copied a folder whose capacity is around 10GB. There are lots of small files in it, so it took some time.
However, when I see in the Windows Explorer after copying the folder, it says that around 43GB of the storage is occupied and now only 70GB of the storage is free to use.
What is happening and how should I deal with it? Is my USB flash drive physically broken?
It is still weird because when I copied a single file with 7 GB capacity, it showed the remaining capacity correctly at around 110 GB available..
usb
edited 28 mins ago
David Stockinger
1921419
asked 17 hours ago
Felix Lee
467
add a comment |Â
up vote
7
down vote
favorite
I recently bought a SanDisk 128GB USB flash drive.
And after formatting the USB flash drive in exFAT format, I copied a folder whose capacity is around 10GB. There are lots of small files in it, so it took some time.
However, when I see in the Windows Explorer after copying the folder, it says that around 43GB of the storage is occupied and now only 70GB of the storage is free to use.
What is happening and how should I deal with it? Is my USB flash drive physically broken?
It is still weird because when I copied a single file with 7 GB capacity, it showed the remaining capacity correctly at around 110 GB available..
usb
edited 28 mins ago
David Stockinger
1921419
asked 17 hours ago
Felix Lee
467
4
If you right click on a small file and go to properties what does it display for "size" and "size on disk"
– Scott Chamberlain
17 hours ago
3
Possible duplicate of Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive
– phuclv
12 hours ago
Why is "size on disk" much bigger than "size" when I copy data from NTFS to exFAT?
– phuclv
12 hours ago
8
You saida 10GB filein the title but actually copied a10GB folder of small files. They're completely different. If your cluster size is 4KB and your files are 1KB on average then obviously it'll take 40GB on disk. By default the allocation size of exFAT is much higher than other file systems
– phuclv
11 hours ago
Someone with privileges please edit the title to read '..copied 10GB worth of files...'
– Carl Witthoft
24 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
7
down vote
favorite
up vote
7
down vote
favorite
I recently bought a SanDisk 128GB USB flash drive.
And after formatting the USB flash drive in exFAT format, I copied a folder whose capacity is around 10GB. There are lots of small files in it, so it took some time.
However, when I see in the Windows Explorer after copying the folder, it says that around 43GB of the storage is occupied and now only 70GB of the storage is free to use.
What is happening and how should I deal with it? Is my USB flash drive physically broken?
It is still weird because when I copied a single file with 7 GB capacity, it showed the remaining capacity correctly at around 110 GB available..
usb
edited 28 mins ago
David Stockinger
1921419
asked 17 hours ago
Felix Lee
467
I recently bought a SanDisk 128GB USB flash drive.
And after formatting the USB flash drive in exFAT format, I copied a folder whose capacity is around 10GB. There are lots of small files in it, so it took some time.
However, when I see in the Windows Explorer after copying the folder, it says that around 43GB of the storage is occupied and now only 70GB of the storage is free to use.
What is happening and how should I deal with it? Is my USB flash drive physically broken?
It is still weird because when I copied a single file with 7 GB capacity, it showed the remaining capacity correctly at around 110 GB available..
usb
usb
edited 28 mins ago
David Stockinger
1921419
asked 17 hours ago
Felix Lee
467
edited 28 mins ago
David Stockinger
1921419
asked 17 hours ago
Felix Lee
467
edited 28 mins ago
David Stockinger
1921419
edited 28 mins ago
David Stockinger
1921419
edited 28 mins ago
David Stockinger
1921419
1921419
asked 17 hours ago
Felix Lee
467
asked 17 hours ago
Felix Lee
467
asked 17 hours ago
Felix Lee
467
467
4
If you right click on a small file and go to properties what does it display for "size" and "size on disk"
– Scott Chamberlain
17 hours ago
3
Possible duplicate of Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive
– phuclv
12 hours ago
Why is "size on disk" much bigger than "size" when I copy data from NTFS to exFAT?
– phuclv
12 hours ago
8
You saida 10GB filein the title but actually copied a10GB folder of small files. They're completely different. If your cluster size is 4KB and your files are 1KB on average then obviously it'll take 40GB on disk. By default the allocation size of exFAT is much higher than other file systems
– phuclv
11 hours ago
Someone with privileges please edit the title to read '..copied 10GB worth of files...'
– Carl Witthoft
24 mins ago
add a comment |Â
4
If you right click on a small file and go to properties what does it display for "size" and "size on disk"
– Scott Chamberlain
17 hours ago
3
Possible duplicate of Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive
– phuclv
12 hours ago
Why is "size on disk" much bigger than "size" when I copy data from NTFS to exFAT?
– phuclv
12 hours ago
8
You saida 10GB filein the title but actually copied a10GB folder of small files. They're completely different. If your cluster size is 4KB and your files are 1KB on average then obviously it'll take 40GB on disk. By default the allocation size of exFAT is much higher than other file systems
– phuclv
11 hours ago
Someone with privileges please edit the title to read '..copied 10GB worth of files...'
– Carl Witthoft
24 mins ago
4
4
If you right click on a small file and go to properties what does it display for "size" and "size on disk"
– Scott Chamberlain
17 hours ago
If you right click on a small file and go to properties what does it display for "size" and "size on disk"
– Scott Chamberlain
17 hours ago
3
3
Possible duplicate of Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive
– phuclv
12 hours ago
Possible duplicate of Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive
– phuclv
12 hours ago
Why is "size on disk" much bigger than "size" when I copy data from NTFS to exFAT?
– phuclv
12 hours ago
Why is "size on disk" much bigger than "size" when I copy data from NTFS to exFAT?
– phuclv
12 hours ago
8
8
You said
a 10GB file in the title but actually copied a 10GB folder of small files. They're completely different. If your cluster size is 4KB and your files are 1KB on average then obviously it'll take 40GB on disk. By default the allocation size of exFAT is much higher than other file systems– phuclv
11 hours ago
You said
a 10GB file in the title but actually copied a 10GB folder of small files. They're completely different. If your cluster size is 4KB and your files are 1KB on average then obviously it'll take 40GB on disk. By default the allocation size of exFAT is much higher than other file systems– phuclv
11 hours ago
Someone with privileges please edit the title to read '..copied 10GB worth of files...'
– Carl Witthoft
24 mins ago
Someone with privileges please edit the title to read '..copied 10GB worth of files...'
– Carl Witthoft
24 mins ago
add a comment |Â
4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
up vote
35
down vote
You already answered your own question: There are lots of small files in it
Every file on an exFAT volume takes at least one blocksize. So a file of a single byte in size takes 4K - a size amplification of 1:4096. You are seing a size amplification of 4.3, which is very plausible with lots of small files.
You can check this hypothesis by packing the files with WinRAR and the zero compression settings, then copy this file to the USB stick.
answered 17 hours ago
Eugen Rieck
9,01122025
I actually don't understand what you mean. Then, do you mean it is a normal occasion? If I format the drive to NTFS, then will the folder be copied in an appropriate capacity? (I actually have no idea how exFAT works)
– Felix Lee
12 hours ago
7
It means exactly what it means. Disk space is allocated in increments of 4kb, approx. A one byte file takes up 4kb of disk space. A two byte file takes up the same 4kb of disk space. Ditto for 3 bytes, and up to 4096 bytes. A 4097 byte file takes up 8192 bytes of disk space, and so on (this is ignoring the overhead of creating directory entries). The average size of your files seems to be about 1kb, so you end up using up four times as much as the sum total of your data. All filesystems work this way, FAT or NTFS, differing only in blk sizes, but some optimizations are possible, occasionally.
– Sam Varshavchik
12 hours ago
4
NTFS is substantially more efficient than any version of FAT at handling lots of small files. If you're only ever going to use this USB drive with full-size computers running Windows, formatting it as NTFS is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you planned to plug it into a camera, on the other hand, or an Apple product, they wouldn't be able to read it.
– zwol
11 hours ago
Pretty much any file systems work like that: dividing the drive into blocks instead of bytes @zwol NTFS can store files directly inside the MFT entry, but since the entry is only 1KB long, only files that are a few hundred bytes long can be made resident
– phuclv
11 hours ago
3
Is it possible the exFAT was gratuitously formatted with a block size much larger than 4k? That could be fixed by reformatting as exFAT with sane options, with no loss in compatibility.
– R..
10 hours ago
 |Â
show 3 more comments
up vote
8
down vote
When formatting as exFAT, you almost surely chose some large allocation unit (block size) like 128k or 512k. Reformat with the standard 4k allocation units and the problem should go away.
answered 10 hours ago
R..
5851515
1
the default allocation size for a 128GB partition is 128KB
– phuclv
9 hours ago
2
Yeah, that's a huge problem. Reformat with 4k.
– R..
8 hours ago
For me, the default allocation size was 512KB..
– Felix Lee
7 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
7
down vote
Why is this happening?
Because you're storing a lot of tiny files.
Filesystems have a minimum file size that they can store. For NTFS filesystems, it's usually 4KB. For exFAT, it can be much larger. That's called the block or cluster size. Files that are smaller than this size will still use up the minimum size, so a 1KB file might use 4KB of disk space. A 3KB file would also use 4KB of disk space. If you have a 5KB file, it'll use 8KB of disk space.
You can imagine it like a grid of holes. Each hole can hold a certain amount of data. Files are spread across as many holes as necessary to hold all the file's data, but holes can't have data from more than one file. So, if a file's data doesn't completely fill a hole, some of that space is wasted. No other file can use it that hole so the unused space is unavailable.
What can you do about it?
In your case, you have a lot of files that don't fill the holes, so there's lots of wasted space. If you were to put all the files into a ZIP file, then all that data would be contained in a single file and it would use a lot less space on the drive.
Some USB drives are formatted as exFAT by default, so alternatively, if you're just using this drive to copy files between Windows computers (or just for storage), you could try reformatting the drive as NTFS (but copy all the files off first, obviously!) to try to get a smaller cluster size.
answered 10 hours ago
Clonkex
4251417
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
As the other answer suggested, use an archiver, but I'll recommend using 7z instead of WinRAR because it's free, and also you can avoid installing any third-party archivers if you use Windows' built-in "Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder" option when you right-click files and folder. It's faster than 7z but it archives slightly slower.
In case you need to store mostly JPEG images or something else that doesn't compress at all, you should benefit from using 7z and picking the "no compression" option explicitly.
Using .zip archive format over .rar or .7z is important because Windows supports browsing them as if it was just any other folder (albeit with some limitations).
If you are okay with not being able to browse files like that on the flash drive, you can use another format, but the important part about the files not taking so much space is having a single archive file instead of all the original files separately.
answered 11 hours ago
Wildcard licensee
212
3
If the size grew 4x over nominal size, the vast majority of the files are 1k or smaller. These almost surely aren't jpeg files.
– R..
10 hours ago
The other thing is, why would you ever select "no compression"? It'll still be slightly smaller, even if the files are not overly compressible.
– Clonkex
9 hours ago
@clonkex because speed and latency are a thing
– PlasmaHH
5 hours ago
@Clonkex Because compression algorithms are relatively slow and resource intensive by their very nature, if you know it's not going to get a meaningful gain from being compressed with the extra time to compress/decompress the files, why not tell the zipper to skip that step?
– James Trotter
4 hours ago
add a comment |Â
4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
4 Answers
4
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
35
down vote
You already answered your own question: There are lots of small files in it
Every file on an exFAT volume takes at least one blocksize. So a file of a single byte in size takes 4K - a size amplification of 1:4096. You are seing a size amplification of 4.3, which is very plausible with lots of small files.
You can check this hypothesis by packing the files with WinRAR and the zero compression settings, then copy this file to the USB stick.
answered 17 hours ago
Eugen Rieck
9,01122025
I actually don't understand what you mean. Then, do you mean it is a normal occasion? If I format the drive to NTFS, then will the folder be copied in an appropriate capacity? (I actually have no idea how exFAT works)
– Felix Lee
12 hours ago
7
It means exactly what it means. Disk space is allocated in increments of 4kb, approx. A one byte file takes up 4kb of disk space. A two byte file takes up the same 4kb of disk space. Ditto for 3 bytes, and up to 4096 bytes. A 4097 byte file takes up 8192 bytes of disk space, and so on (this is ignoring the overhead of creating directory entries). The average size of your files seems to be about 1kb, so you end up using up four times as much as the sum total of your data. All filesystems work this way, FAT or NTFS, differing only in blk sizes, but some optimizations are possible, occasionally.
– Sam Varshavchik
12 hours ago
4
NTFS is substantially more efficient than any version of FAT at handling lots of small files. If you're only ever going to use this USB drive with full-size computers running Windows, formatting it as NTFS is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you planned to plug it into a camera, on the other hand, or an Apple product, they wouldn't be able to read it.
– zwol
11 hours ago
Pretty much any file systems work like that: dividing the drive into blocks instead of bytes @zwol NTFS can store files directly inside the MFT entry, but since the entry is only 1KB long, only files that are a few hundred bytes long can be made resident
– phuclv
11 hours ago
3
Is it possible the exFAT was gratuitously formatted with a block size much larger than 4k? That could be fixed by reformatting as exFAT with sane options, with no loss in compatibility.
– R..
10 hours ago
 |Â
show 3 more comments
up vote
35
down vote
You already answered your own question: There are lots of small files in it
Every file on an exFAT volume takes at least one blocksize. So a file of a single byte in size takes 4K - a size amplification of 1:4096. You are seing a size amplification of 4.3, which is very plausible with lots of small files.
You can check this hypothesis by packing the files with WinRAR and the zero compression settings, then copy this file to the USB stick.
answered 17 hours ago
Eugen Rieck
9,01122025
I actually don't understand what you mean. Then, do you mean it is a normal occasion? If I format the drive to NTFS, then will the folder be copied in an appropriate capacity? (I actually have no idea how exFAT works)
– Felix Lee
12 hours ago
7
It means exactly what it means. Disk space is allocated in increments of 4kb, approx. A one byte file takes up 4kb of disk space. A two byte file takes up the same 4kb of disk space. Ditto for 3 bytes, and up to 4096 bytes. A 4097 byte file takes up 8192 bytes of disk space, and so on (this is ignoring the overhead of creating directory entries). The average size of your files seems to be about 1kb, so you end up using up four times as much as the sum total of your data. All filesystems work this way, FAT or NTFS, differing only in blk sizes, but some optimizations are possible, occasionally.
– Sam Varshavchik
12 hours ago
4
NTFS is substantially more efficient than any version of FAT at handling lots of small files. If you're only ever going to use this USB drive with full-size computers running Windows, formatting it as NTFS is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you planned to plug it into a camera, on the other hand, or an Apple product, they wouldn't be able to read it.
– zwol
11 hours ago
Pretty much any file systems work like that: dividing the drive into blocks instead of bytes @zwol NTFS can store files directly inside the MFT entry, but since the entry is only 1KB long, only files that are a few hundred bytes long can be made resident
– phuclv
11 hours ago
3
Is it possible the exFAT was gratuitously formatted with a block size much larger than 4k? That could be fixed by reformatting as exFAT with sane options, with no loss in compatibility.
– R..
10 hours ago
 |Â
show 3 more comments
up vote
35
down vote
up vote
35
down vote
You already answered your own question: There are lots of small files in it
Every file on an exFAT volume takes at least one blocksize. So a file of a single byte in size takes 4K - a size amplification of 1:4096. You are seing a size amplification of 4.3, which is very plausible with lots of small files.
You can check this hypothesis by packing the files with WinRAR and the zero compression settings, then copy this file to the USB stick.
answered 17 hours ago
Eugen Rieck
9,01122025
You already answered your own question: There are lots of small files in it
Every file on an exFAT volume takes at least one blocksize. So a file of a single byte in size takes 4K - a size amplification of 1:4096. You are seing a size amplification of 4.3, which is very plausible with lots of small files.
You can check this hypothesis by packing the files with WinRAR and the zero compression settings, then copy this file to the USB stick.
answered 17 hours ago
Eugen Rieck
9,01122025
answered 17 hours ago
Eugen Rieck
9,01122025
answered 17 hours ago
Eugen Rieck
9,01122025
answered 17 hours ago
Eugen Rieck
9,01122025
9,01122025
I actually don't understand what you mean. Then, do you mean it is a normal occasion? If I format the drive to NTFS, then will the folder be copied in an appropriate capacity? (I actually have no idea how exFAT works)
– Felix Lee
12 hours ago
7
It means exactly what it means. Disk space is allocated in increments of 4kb, approx. A one byte file takes up 4kb of disk space. A two byte file takes up the same 4kb of disk space. Ditto for 3 bytes, and up to 4096 bytes. A 4097 byte file takes up 8192 bytes of disk space, and so on (this is ignoring the overhead of creating directory entries). The average size of your files seems to be about 1kb, so you end up using up four times as much as the sum total of your data. All filesystems work this way, FAT or NTFS, differing only in blk sizes, but some optimizations are possible, occasionally.
– Sam Varshavchik
12 hours ago
4
NTFS is substantially more efficient than any version of FAT at handling lots of small files. If you're only ever going to use this USB drive with full-size computers running Windows, formatting it as NTFS is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you planned to plug it into a camera, on the other hand, or an Apple product, they wouldn't be able to read it.
– zwol
11 hours ago
Pretty much any file systems work like that: dividing the drive into blocks instead of bytes @zwol NTFS can store files directly inside the MFT entry, but since the entry is only 1KB long, only files that are a few hundred bytes long can be made resident
– phuclv
11 hours ago
3
Is it possible the exFAT was gratuitously formatted with a block size much larger than 4k? That could be fixed by reformatting as exFAT with sane options, with no loss in compatibility.
– R..
10 hours ago
 |Â
show 3 more comments
I actually don't understand what you mean. Then, do you mean it is a normal occasion? If I format the drive to NTFS, then will the folder be copied in an appropriate capacity? (I actually have no idea how exFAT works)
– Felix Lee
12 hours ago
7
It means exactly what it means. Disk space is allocated in increments of 4kb, approx. A one byte file takes up 4kb of disk space. A two byte file takes up the same 4kb of disk space. Ditto for 3 bytes, and up to 4096 bytes. A 4097 byte file takes up 8192 bytes of disk space, and so on (this is ignoring the overhead of creating directory entries). The average size of your files seems to be about 1kb, so you end up using up four times as much as the sum total of your data. All filesystems work this way, FAT or NTFS, differing only in blk sizes, but some optimizations are possible, occasionally.
– Sam Varshavchik
12 hours ago
4
NTFS is substantially more efficient than any version of FAT at handling lots of small files. If you're only ever going to use this USB drive with full-size computers running Windows, formatting it as NTFS is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you planned to plug it into a camera, on the other hand, or an Apple product, they wouldn't be able to read it.
– zwol
11 hours ago
Pretty much any file systems work like that: dividing the drive into blocks instead of bytes @zwol NTFS can store files directly inside the MFT entry, but since the entry is only 1KB long, only files that are a few hundred bytes long can be made resident
– phuclv
11 hours ago
3
Is it possible the exFAT was gratuitously formatted with a block size much larger than 4k? That could be fixed by reformatting as exFAT with sane options, with no loss in compatibility.
– R..
10 hours ago
I actually don't understand what you mean. Then, do you mean it is a normal occasion? If I format the drive to NTFS, then will the folder be copied in an appropriate capacity? (I actually have no idea how exFAT works)
– Felix Lee
12 hours ago
I actually don't understand what you mean. Then, do you mean it is a normal occasion? If I format the drive to NTFS, then will the folder be copied in an appropriate capacity? (I actually have no idea how exFAT works)
– Felix Lee
12 hours ago
7
7
It means exactly what it means. Disk space is allocated in increments of 4kb, approx. A one byte file takes up 4kb of disk space. A two byte file takes up the same 4kb of disk space. Ditto for 3 bytes, and up to 4096 bytes. A 4097 byte file takes up 8192 bytes of disk space, and so on (this is ignoring the overhead of creating directory entries). The average size of your files seems to be about 1kb, so you end up using up four times as much as the sum total of your data. All filesystems work this way, FAT or NTFS, differing only in blk sizes, but some optimizations are possible, occasionally.
– Sam Varshavchik
12 hours ago
It means exactly what it means. Disk space is allocated in increments of 4kb, approx. A one byte file takes up 4kb of disk space. A two byte file takes up the same 4kb of disk space. Ditto for 3 bytes, and up to 4096 bytes. A 4097 byte file takes up 8192 bytes of disk space, and so on (this is ignoring the overhead of creating directory entries). The average size of your files seems to be about 1kb, so you end up using up four times as much as the sum total of your data. All filesystems work this way, FAT or NTFS, differing only in blk sizes, but some optimizations are possible, occasionally.
– Sam Varshavchik
12 hours ago
4
4
NTFS is substantially more efficient than any version of FAT at handling lots of small files. If you're only ever going to use this USB drive with full-size computers running Windows, formatting it as NTFS is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you planned to plug it into a camera, on the other hand, or an Apple product, they wouldn't be able to read it.
– zwol
11 hours ago
NTFS is substantially more efficient than any version of FAT at handling lots of small files. If you're only ever going to use this USB drive with full-size computers running Windows, formatting it as NTFS is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. If you planned to plug it into a camera, on the other hand, or an Apple product, they wouldn't be able to read it.
– zwol
11 hours ago
Pretty much any file systems work like that: dividing the drive into blocks instead of bytes @zwol NTFS can store files directly inside the MFT entry, but since the entry is only 1KB long, only files that are a few hundred bytes long can be made resident
– phuclv
11 hours ago
Pretty much any file systems work like that: dividing the drive into blocks instead of bytes @zwol NTFS can store files directly inside the MFT entry, but since the entry is only 1KB long, only files that are a few hundred bytes long can be made resident
– phuclv
11 hours ago
3
3
Is it possible the exFAT was gratuitously formatted with a block size much larger than 4k? That could be fixed by reformatting as exFAT with sane options, with no loss in compatibility.
– R..
10 hours ago
Is it possible the exFAT was gratuitously formatted with a block size much larger than 4k? That could be fixed by reformatting as exFAT with sane options, with no loss in compatibility.
– R..
10 hours ago
 |Â
show 3 more comments
up vote
8
down vote
When formatting as exFAT, you almost surely chose some large allocation unit (block size) like 128k or 512k. Reformat with the standard 4k allocation units and the problem should go away.
answered 10 hours ago
R..
5851515
1
the default allocation size for a 128GB partition is 128KB
– phuclv
9 hours ago
2
Yeah, that's a huge problem. Reformat with 4k.
– R..
8 hours ago
For me, the default allocation size was 512KB..
– Felix Lee
7 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
8
down vote
When formatting as exFAT, you almost surely chose some large allocation unit (block size) like 128k or 512k. Reformat with the standard 4k allocation units and the problem should go away.
answered 10 hours ago
R..
5851515
1
the default allocation size for a 128GB partition is 128KB
– phuclv
9 hours ago
2
Yeah, that's a huge problem. Reformat with 4k.
– R..
8 hours ago
For me, the default allocation size was 512KB..
– Felix Lee
7 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
8
down vote
up vote
8
down vote
When formatting as exFAT, you almost surely chose some large allocation unit (block size) like 128k or 512k. Reformat with the standard 4k allocation units and the problem should go away.
answered 10 hours ago
R..
5851515
When formatting as exFAT, you almost surely chose some large allocation unit (block size) like 128k or 512k. Reformat with the standard 4k allocation units and the problem should go away.
answered 10 hours ago
R..
5851515
answered 10 hours ago
R..
5851515
answered 10 hours ago
R..
5851515
answered 10 hours ago
R..
5851515
5851515
1
the default allocation size for a 128GB partition is 128KB
– phuclv
9 hours ago
2
Yeah, that's a huge problem. Reformat with 4k.
– R..
8 hours ago
For me, the default allocation size was 512KB..
– Felix Lee
7 hours ago
add a comment |Â
1
the default allocation size for a 128GB partition is 128KB
– phuclv
9 hours ago
2
Yeah, that's a huge problem. Reformat with 4k.
– R..
8 hours ago
For me, the default allocation size was 512KB..
– Felix Lee
7 hours ago
1
1
the default allocation size for a 128GB partition is 128KB
– phuclv
9 hours ago
the default allocation size for a 128GB partition is 128KB
– phuclv
9 hours ago
2
2
Yeah, that's a huge problem. Reformat with 4k.
– R..
8 hours ago
Yeah, that's a huge problem. Reformat with 4k.
– R..
8 hours ago
For me, the default allocation size was 512KB..
– Felix Lee
7 hours ago
For me, the default allocation size was 512KB..
– Felix Lee
7 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
7
down vote
Why is this happening?
Because you're storing a lot of tiny files.
Filesystems have a minimum file size that they can store. For NTFS filesystems, it's usually 4KB. For exFAT, it can be much larger. That's called the block or cluster size. Files that are smaller than this size will still use up the minimum size, so a 1KB file might use 4KB of disk space. A 3KB file would also use 4KB of disk space. If you have a 5KB file, it'll use 8KB of disk space.
You can imagine it like a grid of holes. Each hole can hold a certain amount of data. Files are spread across as many holes as necessary to hold all the file's data, but holes can't have data from more than one file. So, if a file's data doesn't completely fill a hole, some of that space is wasted. No other file can use it that hole so the unused space is unavailable.
What can you do about it?
In your case, you have a lot of files that don't fill the holes, so there's lots of wasted space. If you were to put all the files into a ZIP file, then all that data would be contained in a single file and it would use a lot less space on the drive.
Some USB drives are formatted as exFAT by default, so alternatively, if you're just using this drive to copy files between Windows computers (or just for storage), you could try reformatting the drive as NTFS (but copy all the files off first, obviously!) to try to get a smaller cluster size.
answered 10 hours ago
Clonkex
4251417
add a comment |Â
up vote
7
down vote
Why is this happening?
Because you're storing a lot of tiny files.
Filesystems have a minimum file size that they can store. For NTFS filesystems, it's usually 4KB. For exFAT, it can be much larger. That's called the block or cluster size. Files that are smaller than this size will still use up the minimum size, so a 1KB file might use 4KB of disk space. A 3KB file would also use 4KB of disk space. If you have a 5KB file, it'll use 8KB of disk space.
You can imagine it like a grid of holes. Each hole can hold a certain amount of data. Files are spread across as many holes as necessary to hold all the file's data, but holes can't have data from more than one file. So, if a file's data doesn't completely fill a hole, some of that space is wasted. No other file can use it that hole so the unused space is unavailable.
What can you do about it?
In your case, you have a lot of files that don't fill the holes, so there's lots of wasted space. If you were to put all the files into a ZIP file, then all that data would be contained in a single file and it would use a lot less space on the drive.
Some USB drives are formatted as exFAT by default, so alternatively, if you're just using this drive to copy files between Windows computers (or just for storage), you could try reformatting the drive as NTFS (but copy all the files off first, obviously!) to try to get a smaller cluster size.
answered 10 hours ago
Clonkex
4251417
add a comment |Â
up vote
7
down vote
up vote
7
down vote
Why is this happening?
Because you're storing a lot of tiny files.
Filesystems have a minimum file size that they can store. For NTFS filesystems, it's usually 4KB. For exFAT, it can be much larger. That's called the block or cluster size. Files that are smaller than this size will still use up the minimum size, so a 1KB file might use 4KB of disk space. A 3KB file would also use 4KB of disk space. If you have a 5KB file, it'll use 8KB of disk space.
You can imagine it like a grid of holes. Each hole can hold a certain amount of data. Files are spread across as many holes as necessary to hold all the file's data, but holes can't have data from more than one file. So, if a file's data doesn't completely fill a hole, some of that space is wasted. No other file can use it that hole so the unused space is unavailable.
What can you do about it?
In your case, you have a lot of files that don't fill the holes, so there's lots of wasted space. If you were to put all the files into a ZIP file, then all that data would be contained in a single file and it would use a lot less space on the drive.
Some USB drives are formatted as exFAT by default, so alternatively, if you're just using this drive to copy files between Windows computers (or just for storage), you could try reformatting the drive as NTFS (but copy all the files off first, obviously!) to try to get a smaller cluster size.
answered 10 hours ago
Clonkex
4251417
Why is this happening?
Because you're storing a lot of tiny files.
Filesystems have a minimum file size that they can store. For NTFS filesystems, it's usually 4KB. For exFAT, it can be much larger. That's called the block or cluster size. Files that are smaller than this size will still use up the minimum size, so a 1KB file might use 4KB of disk space. A 3KB file would also use 4KB of disk space. If you have a 5KB file, it'll use 8KB of disk space.
You can imagine it like a grid of holes. Each hole can hold a certain amount of data. Files are spread across as many holes as necessary to hold all the file's data, but holes can't have data from more than one file. So, if a file's data doesn't completely fill a hole, some of that space is wasted. No other file can use it that hole so the unused space is unavailable.
What can you do about it?
In your case, you have a lot of files that don't fill the holes, so there's lots of wasted space. If you were to put all the files into a ZIP file, then all that data would be contained in a single file and it would use a lot less space on the drive.
Some USB drives are formatted as exFAT by default, so alternatively, if you're just using this drive to copy files between Windows computers (or just for storage), you could try reformatting the drive as NTFS (but copy all the files off first, obviously!) to try to get a smaller cluster size.
answered 10 hours ago
Clonkex
4251417
edited 9 hours ago
answered 10 hours ago
Clonkex
4251417
answered 10 hours ago
Clonkex
4251417
answered 10 hours ago
Clonkex
4251417
4251417
add a comment |Â
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
As the other answer suggested, use an archiver, but I'll recommend using 7z instead of WinRAR because it's free, and also you can avoid installing any third-party archivers if you use Windows' built-in "Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder" option when you right-click files and folder. It's faster than 7z but it archives slightly slower.
In case you need to store mostly JPEG images or something else that doesn't compress at all, you should benefit from using 7z and picking the "no compression" option explicitly.
Using .zip archive format over .rar or .7z is important because Windows supports browsing them as if it was just any other folder (albeit with some limitations).
If you are okay with not being able to browse files like that on the flash drive, you can use another format, but the important part about the files not taking so much space is having a single archive file instead of all the original files separately.
answered 11 hours ago
Wildcard licensee
212
3
If the size grew 4x over nominal size, the vast majority of the files are 1k or smaller. These almost surely aren't jpeg files.
– R..
10 hours ago
The other thing is, why would you ever select "no compression"? It'll still be slightly smaller, even if the files are not overly compressible.
– Clonkex
9 hours ago
@clonkex because speed and latency are a thing
– PlasmaHH
5 hours ago
@Clonkex Because compression algorithms are relatively slow and resource intensive by their very nature, if you know it's not going to get a meaningful gain from being compressed with the extra time to compress/decompress the files, why not tell the zipper to skip that step?
– James Trotter
4 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
As the other answer suggested, use an archiver, but I'll recommend using 7z instead of WinRAR because it's free, and also you can avoid installing any third-party archivers if you use Windows' built-in "Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder" option when you right-click files and folder. It's faster than 7z but it archives slightly slower.
In case you need to store mostly JPEG images or something else that doesn't compress at all, you should benefit from using 7z and picking the "no compression" option explicitly.
Using .zip archive format over .rar or .7z is important because Windows supports browsing them as if it was just any other folder (albeit with some limitations).
If you are okay with not being able to browse files like that on the flash drive, you can use another format, but the important part about the files not taking so much space is having a single archive file instead of all the original files separately.
answered 11 hours ago
Wildcard licensee
212
3
If the size grew 4x over nominal size, the vast majority of the files are 1k or smaller. These almost surely aren't jpeg files.
– R..
10 hours ago
The other thing is, why would you ever select "no compression"? It'll still be slightly smaller, even if the files are not overly compressible.
– Clonkex
9 hours ago
@clonkex because speed and latency are a thing
– PlasmaHH
5 hours ago
@Clonkex Because compression algorithms are relatively slow and resource intensive by their very nature, if you know it's not going to get a meaningful gain from being compressed with the extra time to compress/decompress the files, why not tell the zipper to skip that step?
– James Trotter
4 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
1
down vote
up vote
1
down vote
As the other answer suggested, use an archiver, but I'll recommend using 7z instead of WinRAR because it's free, and also you can avoid installing any third-party archivers if you use Windows' built-in "Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder" option when you right-click files and folder. It's faster than 7z but it archives slightly slower.
In case you need to store mostly JPEG images or something else that doesn't compress at all, you should benefit from using 7z and picking the "no compression" option explicitly.
Using .zip archive format over .rar or .7z is important because Windows supports browsing them as if it was just any other folder (albeit with some limitations).
If you are okay with not being able to browse files like that on the flash drive, you can use another format, but the important part about the files not taking so much space is having a single archive file instead of all the original files separately.
answered 11 hours ago
Wildcard licensee
212
As the other answer suggested, use an archiver, but I'll recommend using 7z instead of WinRAR because it's free, and also you can avoid installing any third-party archivers if you use Windows' built-in "Send to > Compressed (zipped) folder" option when you right-click files and folder. It's faster than 7z but it archives slightly slower.
In case you need to store mostly JPEG images or something else that doesn't compress at all, you should benefit from using 7z and picking the "no compression" option explicitly.
Using .zip archive format over .rar or .7z is important because Windows supports browsing them as if it was just any other folder (albeit with some limitations).
If you are okay with not being able to browse files like that on the flash drive, you can use another format, but the important part about the files not taking so much space is having a single archive file instead of all the original files separately.
answered 11 hours ago
Wildcard licensee
212
answered 11 hours ago
Wildcard licensee
212
answered 11 hours ago
Wildcard licensee
212
answered 11 hours ago
Wildcard licensee
212
212
3
If the size grew 4x over nominal size, the vast majority of the files are 1k or smaller. These almost surely aren't jpeg files.
– R..
10 hours ago
The other thing is, why would you ever select "no compression"? It'll still be slightly smaller, even if the files are not overly compressible.
– Clonkex
9 hours ago
@clonkex because speed and latency are a thing
– PlasmaHH
5 hours ago
@Clonkex Because compression algorithms are relatively slow and resource intensive by their very nature, if you know it's not going to get a meaningful gain from being compressed with the extra time to compress/decompress the files, why not tell the zipper to skip that step?
– James Trotter
4 hours ago
add a comment |Â
3
If the size grew 4x over nominal size, the vast majority of the files are 1k or smaller. These almost surely aren't jpeg files.
– R..
10 hours ago
The other thing is, why would you ever select "no compression"? It'll still be slightly smaller, even if the files are not overly compressible.
– Clonkex
9 hours ago
@clonkex because speed and latency are a thing
– PlasmaHH
5 hours ago
@Clonkex Because compression algorithms are relatively slow and resource intensive by their very nature, if you know it's not going to get a meaningful gain from being compressed with the extra time to compress/decompress the files, why not tell the zipper to skip that step?
– James Trotter
4 hours ago
3
3
If the size grew 4x over nominal size, the vast majority of the files are 1k or smaller. These almost surely aren't jpeg files.
– R..
10 hours ago
If the size grew 4x over nominal size, the vast majority of the files are 1k or smaller. These almost surely aren't jpeg files.
– R..
10 hours ago
The other thing is, why would you ever select "no compression"? It'll still be slightly smaller, even if the files are not overly compressible.
– Clonkex
9 hours ago
The other thing is, why would you ever select "no compression"? It'll still be slightly smaller, even if the files are not overly compressible.
– Clonkex
9 hours ago
@clonkex because speed and latency are a thing
– PlasmaHH
5 hours ago
@clonkex because speed and latency are a thing
– PlasmaHH
5 hours ago
@Clonkex Because compression algorithms are relatively slow and resource intensive by their very nature, if you know it's not going to get a meaningful gain from being compressed with the extra time to compress/decompress the files, why not tell the zipper to skip that step?
– James Trotter
4 hours ago
@Clonkex Because compression algorithms are relatively slow and resource intensive by their very nature, if you know it's not going to get a meaningful gain from being compressed with the extra time to compress/decompress the files, why not tell the zipper to skip that step?
– James Trotter
4 hours ago
add a comment |Â
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4
If you right click on a small file and go to properties what does it display for "size" and "size on disk"
– Scott Chamberlain
17 hours ago
3
Possible duplicate of Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive
– phuclv
12 hours ago
Why is "size on disk" much bigger than "size" when I copy data from NTFS to exFAT?
– phuclv
12 hours ago
8
You said
a 10GB filein the title but actually copied a10GB folder of small files. They're completely different. If your cluster size is 4KB and your files are 1KB on average then obviously it'll take 40GB on disk. By default the allocation size of exFAT is much higher than other file systems– phuclv
11 hours ago
Someone with privileges please edit the title to read '..copied 10GB worth of files...'
– Carl Witthoft
24 mins ago