I'm trying to understand why the size on disk for my folders is significantly larger on one drive compared to another. For instance, I had a 2GB folder on my F: drive, but it showed a size on disk of 6GB. When I checked the same 2GB folder on my E: drive, it showed up as 22GB. What causes this discrepancy? Additionally, I'm currently downloading a large file that's supposed to take up 650GB, but it's already used 800GB on the E: drive before even finishing the download. What's going on?
2 Answers
It sounds like your E: drive might be formatted in exFAT, which can cause larger allocation units. This means every small file takes up at least a certain chunk of space, leading to lots of wasted space with smaller files. If your other drive is also exFAT but showing less disk usage, it might be how files are stored or the free space management on that drive. You can check your drive format in properties, but if reformatting is on your mind, it does mean you’d typically have to back up everything first and then format the drive.
If you have a lot of small files in your folders, that might be a big part of the issue. When you have thousands of files, they can take up more space due to overhead. Each file has a minimum size it takes up on the disk, which can lead to lots of wasted space if they’re all tiny files. That could explain the size difference you're seeing on the two drives.
Yeah, I definitely have a lot of files. I’m really confused about the download, though, since it’s taking so much space.
Yeah, it is exFAT. I’d rather not reformat since I have a lot of stuff on there. Thanks for the info!