Why Is My Ssd Drive Guzzling Space?

Hi,

So I bought an SSD drive, it's a Netac Mobile Data star. I've copied over a folder of code files (React boilerplate and such) and what was 800MB on my Windows 11-running Toshiba Satellite Pro for some reason takes up 13GB on the SSD. Anyone have any experience with this or can suggest a fix?

Many thanks in advance

 

Well, you either accidently copied over more than you think, or they were highly compressed and the copied are not, or something else is going on. Did you look in the new folder to compare files?

 

Thanks for your reply. You should be able to see in the screengrab that the files are reporting as the same size. I should mention these are being copied from a Dropbox folder, so I don't know if that complicates things.

 

Just tried a non-Dropbox folder and that also came out six or seven times the size, in total memory usage, of the original folder.

 

Move up the tree and right-click on the folder "Arrays in State" then select "Properties" and compare sizes. If the same, move up to "exemplar code" and compare.

You might also check out something like Folder Size, TreeSize, WizTree, and/or my favorite, WinDirStat to map out your drive(s) and see where the space is being used. But I caution, do not delete anything unless sure it is not needed by your system - Google it first.

 

Hi,
Thanks for that suggestion. So interestingly, the actual size of the file is showing up the same in both cases, but the size-on-disk is much larger on the SSD drive only. I'll try one of the file tree apps you recommended.

 

I think the cluster size on your SSD drive is much larger than on your old drive. If I'm right, you can only change the cluster size if you reformat the drive. Sorry.

 

Not at all. I've just been experimenting with back up software and such, drafting a system to put in place long term, so it's good to wrinkle out a detail like that now. I had given it a quick format, but now I'm giving it the full format. Thanks for your reply.

 

Good luck.

 

Thanks!

 

Okay, so the following article was helpful because...

https://uk.crucial.com/articles/about-ssd/how-to-format-a-solid-state-drive

1) Apparently I should not have done a full format, only quick format for SSD drives.
2) As advised: "Select the File System (usually NTFS) in the dialog that appears and enter the Allocation Unit Size (usually 4096) and check Perform a quick format"

Followed those instructions and now files are showing up at the expected size.

Thanks everyone for your input.

 

I'm glad I was helpful.

 

I am glad you got it sorted and thanks for coming back and posting your solution.

But do note that article is misleading.

It is true a full format can shorten the life of an SSD. But with a modern SSD, that is like reducing it from 10 years to 9 years, 11 months, 29 days and 23 hours.

For example, the Samsung 860 EVO 500GB SSD has an "endurance" spec of "300 TBW" (terabytes written). To "wear out" that SSD with writes, you would have to write/save ~80GB of data to the drive, each and every day for 10 years!!!!

Also, regardless if selecting full or quick, you can select the cluster size. It normally defaults to 4K (4096) but if different, you can easily select it.

More importantly, despite any myths floating around, a full format will NOT "damage" a SSD. Period. Full stop. End of discussion.

For those wondering, a full format for an SSD touches every storage location on the disk and resets the bit to "0". A quick simply resets the pointer can clears the tables, telling the controller the drive is empty. This is similar to the difference with a hard drive.