[SOLVED] Storage Space doesn't add up.

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
Danayel-Z32K

Danayel-Z32K

Prominent
Jul 14, 2020
17
0
510
Hello!

I have an HDD to store general programs, media and games but there's a problem with it. It says in the Properties that I have used 576GB of the disk's maximum 931GB but when I select the folders in the disk (all 5 of them, including the hidden one which is empty by the way) and add their collective usage, they show up as capturing only 480GB. That's a gap of a 96 whopping GBs and in my opinion, not a size to sneeze at.

Is there any way for me to recover this brobdingnagian chunk of space that was mysteriously lost to the aether? I vaguely remember some bugs with the new Win10 updates in the unlikely event that it's related, but am unsure of what they do and how they affect your data.

The disk model is: TOSHIBA HDD DT01ACA100 1TB 3.5"

Any form of assistance will be appreciated. Let me know if you need additional info/screenshots that may help with that.

Thanks in advance.
 
Solution
ex_bubblehead
Danayel-Z32K said:
I know, which means there actually is something that occupies space. Wish it also said what it was so I could decide what to do with it.

Still, no solution offered with this new comment. Shall remain absent until a suggestion is posed.
Click to expand...
There are a great many files that belong to the OS and you have no access to them (for very good reason). Bottom line here is that you are obsessing over something that isn't a problem. And, you still haven't indicated whether or not you turned "System Restore" OFF. System Restore, when ON, always has at least 1 restore point (created the moment it's turned on) and creates new ones (up to the drive space set) on a regular basis, and any time updates are installed. This consumes large...
Sort by date Sort by votes
Danayel-Z32K said:
Hello!

I have an HDD to store general programs, media and games but there's a problem with it. It says in the Properties that I have used 576GB of the disk's maximum 931GB but when I select the folders in the disk (all 5 of them, including the hidden one which is empty by the way) and add their collective usage, they show up as capturing only 480GB. That's a gap of a 96 whopping GBs and in my opinion, not a size to sneeze at.

Is there any way for me to recover this brobdingnagian chunk of space that was mysteriously lost to the aether? I vaguely remember some bugs with the new Win10 updates in the unlikely event that it's related, but am unsure of what they do and how they affect your data.

The disk model is: TOSHIBA HDD DT01ACA100 1TB 3.5"

Any form of assistance will be appreciated. Let me know if you need additional info/screenshots that may help with that.

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...
To see more details https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/treesize_free.html
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
mdd1963 said:
Hoping to get everything to add up is entering one giant, deep proverbial rabbit-hole...

(The Recycle Bin also reserves quite a bit of space, even when empty...; you can set a custom size of only 4 GB or so and see if you reclaim any total space)
Click to expand...

In all the PCs I've ever owned I never delete with the RB, I use the Shift+Del method. Also in the properties of the bin I have set it to delete files immediately, not moving them to it first.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Here you go. To see the screenshots Click Me! Please bear in mind that I have freed some space since I made this post, and I didn't measure to see if the gap is still the same, lower or higher. Let me know if you need additional caps.

P.S. I have named the disk "Seagate" because I like that name, but it's really the Toshiba HDD.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
What kind of files - I mean file size - are you storing on that drive ? If you have millions of small files, then each file will occupy more space than it's contents due to overhead and round up to sector size (I'm not sure how efficient NTFS is in order to pack small files into MFT itself or some other method of packing sets of small files together).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet said:
Disk Management and WinDirStat both show ~533GB consumed space.
And in there, 41.2GB cache file.

What you can see and select in File Explorer is not everything on that drive.
Click to expand...

41GB cache, yes, but that leaves still a 55GBs unaccounted for. Also what good is this cache for? Can I simply get rid of it? This disk is used simply for storage, not for the OS or any system-critical files.


Grobe said:
What kind of files - I mean file size - are you storing on that drive ? If you have millions of small files, then each file will occupy more space than it's contents due to overhead and round up to sector size (I'm not sure how efficient NTFS is in order to pack small files into MFT itself or some other method of packing sets of small files together).
Click to expand...

I wouldn't say millions, they are about 50-70 thousand files. Like I said, I use it for maintenance/utility program storage, game files storage and media such as videos, music and pictures. The media file by itself is 8.7GB.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Danayel-Z32K said:
41GB cache, yes, but that leaves still a 55GBs unaccounted for. Also what good is this cache for? Can I simply get rid of it? This disk is used simply for storage, not for the OS or any system-critical files.
Click to expand...
Unknown.
What is generating that? Will it simply come back?

Also, look into your System Restore Points and settings.
I don't believe WinDirStat reads that space.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet said:
Also, look into your System Restore Points and settings.
I don't believe WinDirStat reads that space.
Click to expand...

I did for good measure, even though I never had to set a restore point, this computer is only one and a half month old. But I checked anyway in the case Windows made one on its own. Didn't see anything that would pertain to that.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
USAFRet said:
Again, WinDirStat and Disk Management agree on the consumed space.
Click to expand...

I know, which means there actually is something that occupies space. Wish it also said what it was so I could decide what to do with it.

Still, no solution offered with this new comment. Shall remain absent until a suggestion is posed.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Has windows partioned your drive? Have you looked into the sysyem volume information? Cant stop and cant seem to delete any info there but windows10 keeps adding stuff. This week is a 7Kb database file added to all drives along with other empty directorys and files.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Danayel-Z32K said:
I know, which means there actually is something that occupies space. Wish it also said what it was so I could decide what to do with it.

Still, no solution offered with this new comment. Shall remain absent until a suggestion is posed.
Click to expand...
There are a great many files that belong to the OS and you have no access to them (for very good reason). Bottom line here is that you are obsessing over something that isn't a problem. And, you still haven't indicated whether or not you turned "System Restore" OFF. System Restore, when ON, always has at least 1 restore point (created the moment it's turned on) and creates new ones (up to the drive space set) on a regular basis, and any time updates are installed. This consumes large quantities of space to which you do not have rights to view, and the directory/s involved are not visible to such tools as WinDirStat (always show 0 bytes consumed).
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
USAFRet said:
Please show us a screencap of whatever is showing the "incorrect" space.
Click to expand...

Click this to see the image you requested. I have underlined the POIs in red. It took some time to calculate the occupied space of all the files, on the Properties of all the selected folders (right picture) so I took a screenshot a while after it stopped counting to make sure that was all.

Mtop said:
Has windows partioned your drive? Have you looked into the sysyem volume information? Cant stop and cant seem to delete any info there but windows10 keeps adding stuff. This week is a 7Kb database file added to all drives along with other empty directorys and files.
Click to expand...

I am certain Windows hasn't partitioned my drive. Not D: anyway. It would show up in the Disk Management screenshot I provided above.


ex_bubblehead said:
There are a great many files that belong to the OS and you have no access to them (for very good reason). Bottom line here is that you are obsessing over something that isn't a problem. And, you still haven't indicated whether or not you turned "System Restore" OFF. System Restore, when ON, always has at least 1 restore point (created the moment it's turned on) and creates new ones (up to the drive space set) on a regular basis, and any time updates are installed. This consumes large quantities of space to which you do not have rights to view, and the directory/s involved are not visible to such tools as WinDirStat (always show 0 bytes consumed).
Click to expand...

For the sake of the argument I did in fact turn System Restore off and deleted the restoration points, but that didn't solve the problem. Not that it would, given that the OS disk is C: and not D: the latter only being used as programs storage. If my knowledge of PCing is correct, SR by default saves restoration data in the disk the OS itself is in, right?

And another thing: Obsess I might be, but I simply cannot stand errors in the devices I handle.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
You are correct that restore points are stored on OS drive.
I agree with you when I back up 1 drive to another I expect them to have the same data until the next backup. I recently went thru 50 directory properties to determine where the error was. Found in system volume information. I have formatted these drives and rebacked up data. Erasing the data in system volume information did not caused any problems.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Mtop said:
You are correct that restore points are stored on OS drive.
I agree with you when I back up 1 drive to another I expect them to have the same data until the next backup. I recently went thru 50 directory properties to determine where the error was. Found in system volume information. I have formatted these drives and rebacked up data. Erasing the data in system volume information did not caused any problems.
Click to expand...
Depends on the functionality of the "backup" application.

Some things purposely leave off things like temp files, pagefile, hiberfil.
Things that do not have effect on the function of a future restore.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom