New WD easy store 5 TB

WD External and Portable SSD External SSD for macOS
1

Brand new 5TB easy store, connected and reformatted to MS-DOS (for use on either MAC or Windows) and the device shows 4.4 TB used. Also, nothing shows on the drive, no folders, no files, nothing, yet it shows 4.4 TB used. It’s brand new!

Any ideas of how to view what is on this device and why would a new device be 90% full?

Other than erasing and reformatting again, any other suggestions?

I’d really like to see what is on the drive before erasing it.

2

lots of things make no sense

First is … MS-DOS is an Operating System … not a File System Format for Hard Drives eg. FAT32, NTFS, exFAT (which is compatible with MAC & Windows) etc

Second … MS-DOS aka. Microsoft Disc Operating System is not compatible with MAC

Third … A 5TB drive is actually 4.5TB when converted to OS base 2 math

I think you’re confusing free with used

3

You do not need to worry about losing data because the drive is completely blank. What you are seeing is an artifact of choosing the wrong file format for a large drive. When you formatted a 5TB drive to MS-DOS (FAT32), you hit a hard 32-bit limitation that breaks how disk space is calculated. To actually use the full 5TB of space across both Mac and Windows systems, you must format it to exFAT using a GUID Partition Map (GPT).

But If you still want peace of mind and want to verify your drive is empty before moving forward, take the steps:

Open your drive in File Explorer.

Click View > Show > check Hidden items.

(You will see nothing but an empty folder.)

Since MS-DOS cannot handle 5TB of storage space. You must convert it to exFAT so it works on both Mac and Windows with full capacity.

Open This PC.

Right-click your drive and select Format…

Change File system to exFAT.

Check Quick Format and click Start.

Within seconds, your drive will show the correct amount of free space that is around 5TB and be ready to use. Read this related guide: MS-DOS (FAT) vs FAT32 vs exFAT vs Mac OS Extended (Journaled)