Problem with huge size on disk on new external SSD

Discussion in 'PC' started by Gyorgy Ligeti, Jan 11, 2022.

  1. Gyorgy Ligeti

    Gyorgy Ligeti Rock Star

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    Hi Guys,
    I bought a new SSD, SanDisk Extreme 1Tb, and started moving some files from my computer to the new SSD. However, the actual size of the files on the disk is enormous compared to the declared ones. For example, a folder with many midi files, 37 MB in size, weighs over 300 GB on the disk. Some 140 MB Arturia files weigh over 12.8 GB on disk. How is it possible? The disk is ExFAT formatted.
    Is there anything I can do to overcome this issue?
     
    Gyorgy Ligeti, Jan 11, 2022
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  2. twoheart

    twoheart Audiosexual

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    Best Answer
    Yes, and it doesn't cost you a dime. But you need to format your drive an copy the files again:

    The size files allocate on disks depend on how you format your drive.
    If you store a huge amount of files it would be better to use a small cluster size.
    The cluster size is the smallest size a file will allocate on disk.
    I always format my external drives with NTFS because the smallest allowed cluster size is 512 byte.
    Given you have 10 million files of 500 bytes length and a cluster size of 16 KByte you will use 10 million by 16384 byte on disk that is 16 384 * 10 000 000 = 163 840 000 000 bytes or 16 384 Megabytes.
    If you use a cluster size of 512 byte you will use 10 Millions multiplyed by 512 bytes = 512 Megabytes.
    To make it clear: Its the same 10 Million files.

    ExFAT uses very high cluster sizes (at least 64 KBytes) from therefore it needs a lot more of disk space than NTFS (512 bytes minimum) when you use small file sizes.

    As a rule of thumb: If you only use a few very big (e.g. Videos) files ExFAT is ok, for a Samples collection disk NTFS is the better choice.
     
    Last edited: Jan 11, 2022
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    twoheart, Jan 11, 2022
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  3. nism

    nism Ultrasonic

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    Yes, it was caused by the wrong formatting. Your drive is like a road. You can find a more place on the road (your Gb on disk) if 10000 people take seats on the busses (NTSF) instead of the cars (ExFAT).
     
    nism, Jan 11, 2022
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  4. Gyorgy Ligeti

    Gyorgy Ligeti Rock Star

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    Thanks for your thorough and kind reply! I will follow your directions. :wink:
     
    Gyorgy Ligeti, Jan 11, 2022
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