Storage size on Extreme Portable SSD unusually large. 25 times larger than total file sizes

the file size should not be different even to the extent of 3 time larger. Something is not right. How are you copying the files? Are the files compressed on the HDD? 

Thanks for the rapid reply.  I’m not doing anything special just using Windows Explorer to copy the files. Same way with the new Portable SSD and the other media was a Sandisk 128GB micro SD card that was partitioned into 2 - 64GB partitions.  I have also copied these files to a Sandisk UltraFit 64GB flash drive.  Both the microSD and the UltraFit media had similar difference between the file size and the size on disk.  The files were not compressed on the HDD. The difference between sizes on the HDD is very small, only about .5GB. There are 1000’s of files in the 10KB-40KB range. The HDD is formatted to NTFS and the SSD and microSD are both exFAT. I wonder if that could be causing problems?  Double checked again and files on HDD are not compressed. I just deleted all of the files that I copied originally and re-copied just one folder with about 8100 files and the stored size was 10 times the file size reported.

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I am having a similar issue as OP. Using Mac OS, copied 54GB iphoto photoibrary from external HD and final result is over 300GB on extreme portable SSD. “Get Info” on folder is endless cycle of “calculating size” but DaisyDisk quickly reveals ultimate size. 54GB iphoto photolibrary is same size on multiple other external harddrives.

Did anyone find out what the issue is?  I also have this problem but not as bad.  

My EXTREME Portable 500GB drive is exFAT formatted.  It has 231,333 files, 5936 folders that should be using 253.02 GB.

Window is reporting 27.5 GB free of 465 GB.  I have lost over 200 GB somewhere.

Same here.

I copied 50 GB file onto the drive. Appeares to me that it take 300 GB. 

Anybody found any solution for this?

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I had to re-format the SSD from exFAT to NTFS.  The drive came formated with exFAT sector size >2MB (sorry I don’t rember exactly how big sector size was) and I was copying 1000’s of 5-15KB size files. NTFS took care of the problem for me.  Might not work with old versions of Windows and Mac’s. 

One thing I forgot to mention was that I chose 512 byte cluster size because of the small size of the most of the files I am storing on the drive.  You’ll get better performance with a larger cluster size which would be better for media files like large video files at the cost of losing some file space. Not as much as the default Sandisk cluster size. As you can tell I’m not an expert but it worked for me. 

@larryg92 wrote:

One thing I forgot to mention was that I chose 512 byte cluster size because of the small size of the most of the files I am storing on the drive.  You’ll get better [Vidmate iTunes Notepad++](Vidmate iTunes Notepad++)performance with a larger cluster size which would be better for media files like large video files at the cost of losing some file space. Not as much as the default Sandisk cluster size. As you can tell I’m not an expert but it worked for me. 

the file size should not be different even to the extent of 3 time larger. Something is not right. How are you copying the files? Are the files compressed on the HDD? 

@larryg92 wrote:

Thanks for the rapid reply.  I’m not doing anything special just using Windows Explorer to copy the files. Same way with the new Portable SSD and the other media was a Sandisk 128GB micro SD card that was partitioned into 2 - 64GB partitions.  I have also copied these files to a Sandisk UltraFit 64GB flash drive.  Both the microSD and the UltraFit media had similar difference between the file size and the size on disk.  The files were not compressed on the HDD. The difference between sizes on the HDD is very small, only about .5GB. There are 1000’s of files in the 10KB-40KB range. The HDD is formatted to NTFS and the SSD and microSD are both exFAT. I wonder if that could be causing problems?  Double checked again and files on HDD are not compressed. I just deleted all of the files that I copied originally and re-copied just one folder with about 8100 files and the stored size was 10 times the file size reported.

files to it from my local HDD.  One folder with 591 subfolders and 247,252 files that has a total file size of 9.12 GB is occupying 243 GB (yes, about 25 times bigger) on the SSD.  I have copied these same files to other flash drives, that were also formated to exFAT, and did not 

@larryg92 wrote:

One thing I forgot to mention was that I chose 512 byte cluster size because of the small size of the most of the files I am storing on the drive.  You’ll get better performance with a larger cluster size which would be better for media files like large video files at the cost of losing some file space. Not as much as the default Sandisk cluster size. As you can tell I’m not an expert but it worked for me. 

the file size should not be different even to the extent of 3 time larger. Something is not right. How are you copying the files? Are the files compressed on the HDD? 

@britany wrote:


@larryg92 wrote:

One thing I forgot to mention was that I chose 512 byte cluster size because of the small size of the most of the files I am storing on the drive FileZilla UC Browser Rufus.  You’ll get better performance with a larger cluster size which would be better for media files like large video files at the cost of losing some file space. Not as much as the default Sandisk cluster size. As you can tell I’m not an expert but it worked for me. 


the file size should not be different even to the extent of 3 time larger. Something is not right. How are you copying the files? Are the files compressed on the HDD? 

 

 

One thing I forgot to mention was that I chose 512 byte cluster size because of the small size of the most of the files I am storing on the drive.  You’ll get better performance with a larger cluster size which would be better for media files like large video files at the cost of losing some file space. Not as much as the default Sandisk cluster size. As you can tell I’m not an expert but it worked for me. 

I Windows Explorer, right-clicking a file or folder and choosing Properties will show the nominal size as well as the disk size.

I believe a cluster size / allocation unit of e.g. 1024 KB mens all files will take up at least this much space on disk each (and e.g. a file of nominal size 1025 KB will take up 2048 KB, disk size). So a file of 1 byte (0.001 KB, extreme lower limit) will take up about a million times as much space on disk (extreme upper limit). A short Word document of e.g. 20 KB will take up 50 times as much; a medium resolution photo of e.g. 200 KB will take up 5 times as much.

On my SanDisk the allocation unit is 1024 KB; I’m not sure but I think that is how it came - and it certainly annoys me now. The SSD drive on my laptop has allocation unit 4 KB, meaning the disk space used for each small file is much much smaller.

I suppose a large allocation unit leads to better speed performance for large files, so the best choice of allocation unit is a compromise. Perhaps there are also design choices made when building an SSD that mean it will work best with a certain allocation unit - I do not know.

I suppose the only way to change the allocation unit is through formatting the drive, so I suppose you’ll need some other place to keep your files meanwhile.

External SSDs come in small packages that are easy to take with you, offering the best combination of portability and performance. And they’re more durable than external hard drives because there are no moving parts. But they’re far more expensive, so use them for your working files where speed is critical Krogerfeedback

Bu7mdan1001@gmail.com

I had the same problem and reformatted to NTFS and it fixed it.  Is there any difference in performance between exFAT and NTFS?  Could the cluster size change to speed of transfer?

NTFS is a bit more write intensive as it’s a journaling filesystem (i.e. the SSD will be re/written anytime a file is accessed) in addition to the MFT and other features that require space that will require a reformat to reset.

My solution to the issue is when you reformat the drive as exFAT, change the Allocation size to default (128KB).  You will lose about 12MB capacity but won’t have the massive 1MB word documents and ~120MB loss due to NTFS’s MFT.  You can change the allocation size to anything you want, though I do believe at higher capacities some options like 4KB will not be available (NTFS default).

I’d imagine larger cluster sizes will be faster, though probably not by much.

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I read this somewhere and now I can’t find the article… But maybe this will lead you in the right direction. With this SSD it will automatically save any file as 1MB or higher because of the way its formatted out of the box. It has 1MB set as the minimum file size. Basically this means if you have a file that is 250KB it will still take up 1MB on the SSD. But if you have a file that is more than 1MB, like 1.8MB, it will still be 1.8MB on the SSD. This is a formatting option you can change. You can set it to save files at a minimum of 10KB or even 1KB.

I have a problem, when I download Apk of WhatsApp, but latest, when I put on my Sandisk SD card, it shows me file contains error, I tried to download from official website of https://whatsapp.com also I tried to install from a third party website which provides apk’s. here somaapp.com/whatsapp-mod-apk but still showing “file contains error”. when I move from phone to SD card, it shows.

The cause of your problem is, in my opinion, a marketing ploy. The hard disks are delivered formatted with an unfavorable sector size. This leads to an enormous waste of space and thus to faster full hard drives and hopefully soon following further purchases of hard drives.

The solution to the problem is simple: The SSD should be reformatted before use. As a file format, exFAT is a good choice besides NTFS for general purpose use. If you only work with macOS, HFS or APFS is also possible, and e.g. ext is suitable for Linux. The respective standard configuration of the formatting tool / operating system should fit.

I have the same issue. A whooping 2Tb ext hard drive gives me about 1Tb storage (or less) as I have many small sized files. This is after I made a back-up of my PC - kind of frustrating.