File takes up twice the space when I copy it to a 6tb drive

Probably to do with sector size, but what do I do?

I assume I cannot change the sector size without reformatting

Thanks all

Hi, maybe some answers using your topic title : https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=File+takes+up+twice+the+space+when+I+copy+it+to+a+6tb+drive

Probably to do with sector size, but what do I do?

I assume I cannot change the sector size without reformatting

Thanks all

It doesn't.  Sector size is largely irrelevant to most end users unless you have a huge number of files that would otherwise be smaller than 4096 bytes (or a huge number of files in general - on the order of billions of files).  Most end users are more concerned with the filesystem's block size which is based on the underlying sector size. It's always a whole number multiple of the physical sector size.  A 200 GB uncompressed contiguous file is 200 GB no matter what storage device it's stored on.  Only the final block holding its data will have wasted space.  However, various filesystems and now many SSDs have transparent (with various degrees of transparency and usefulness) file compression such that 200GB on one drive may be 300 GB on another with file compression turned off.  The compression is essential to the wear leveling of many SSDs so that hardware feature can't be disabled (so, for example, NTFS' file compression option probably shouldn't be used with those drives).  Spinning rust (conventional mechanical hard drives) doesn't require wear leveling and NTFS defaults to file compression being turned off in most environments, so the file will occupy more of the physical space on the new drive.

This is all supposed to be transparent to the user, but it turns out in practice that's not always the case, so sometimes you'll see discrepancies like this.

(Oh, and you can't change the drive's sector size.  That's part of the drive's firmware.  Consider it a physical limitation.  The only thing you can change by formatting is a file system's block size.  Totally different beast even though they're related.)

Edited by h_b_s, 03 January 2024 - 10:43 PM.

I don't know if this is the case but I had a Windows 10 computer that had CompactOS already enabled. This assumes the data you are copying from is the System partition.

See the below link

https://thegeekpage.com/how-to-enable-or-disable-compact-os-in-windows-10/

You can see if your Windows 10 has CompactOS enabled with the following command

Compact /CompactOS:Query

Edited by JohnC_21, 04 January 2024 - 07:58 AM.

I seem to vaguely remember there are various types of disk formatting- does it matter which i choose?

also will the tetradrive fill up faster so i need to buy another earlier? marketing strategy?

thanks all