Available free space

[tkdusb]

I'm a little confused about how much space I have left on my H120. When I look at it through My Computer, it says that 15.6 GB are being used. When I go into the drive, highlight all the files, right click and check, it says I'm only using 13.8 GB. And when I check on the main unit itself (when I'm browsing through songs), I think it displays like 5 GB free. Any idea why there's a difference in the values, and which one I should assume is correct? I'm using Win98SE if that helps. (Not computer savvy, so please try to make any explanations simple)

[dhbailey]

When you highlight all the files, the OS reports the total space of each file added together.

However, files are stored on hard disks in sectors, which are grouped into clusters. Depending on the OS, clusters are different sizes. Sectors are 256 bytes, I think. Clusters are groups of sectors (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, depending on the OS and the FAT system.) A file will always occupy at least one cluster, even if it is a one-byte file. A file may actually fill 3 clusters with 1 byte left over, but the OS reports it as filling 4 clusters.

So when you ask the OS how much free space is left, it calculates the total number of bytes of the hard disk, and subtracts the total amount of space used, based on cluster usage, since even if a cluster has only 1 byte in it, no other file can use that cluster.

That is where the discrepancy in free space calculations comes from -- you may actually have 6.2 MB of bytes which are unused, but many of those bytes are unavailable as they are the unused space remaining in clusters which are already assigned to other files.

[dhbailey]

feeling stupid in having to reply to my own reply, I realize I neglected to answer the final question about which one you should believe.

Believe the OS report of available space, since that is what the OS will use when it tries to put more files on the device.

So if it displays 5GB free, that's what you should go by. But realize that if you files which are 5MB in size you won't be able to put 1000 of them on your device, even though 5MBx1000=5GB.

Just one of those things which makes you realize computers were invented by men who obviously can't get the math right -- after all, many men claim that THAT is 6", while their girlfriends know the reality.

[XtReMe]

Anyone know where I can get 35 gigs of music

[pomegranate]

XtReMe, just rip about 70 CDs as WAV. At 1411kbps, you'll soon get 35 gigs, if that's really what you're interested in.
If you're really desperate to bulk up your collection and are broke, see what they have in your public library.

[tkdusb]

Just to let you guys know, I ran ScanDisk on my H120, and it said it found errors and fixed them. I checked the space available afterwards and now they match! So that's good

[reddshack]

Originally Posted by dhbailey

So if it displays 5GB free, that's what you should go by. But realize that if you files which are 5MB in size you won't be able to put 1000 of them on your device, even though 5MBx1000=5GB.

Well actually it's more like: 5MB x 1000 / 1024 = 4.88GB -- but that's okay.

But as you said, it is all dependant upon the HD file system to determine how much space it ACTUALLY takes up.

Originally Posted by dhbailey

Just one of those things which makes you realize computers were invented by men who obviously can't get the math right

This is because computers aren't based upon the metric system.

1 gigabyte = 1024 megabytes -- Therefore 5120 MB = 5 GB.

The reasoning for this is because of binary. Computers initially could have been based upon the metric system, but they weren't. So the math does make sense.

On a less serious note:

There are 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't!