Comparison reporting 512gb drive with 10.2tb files! Help!

[johneg]

Hi guys,

attempting to use ffs as my general backup software for a personal computer. I have 4 drives and a few folders to sync. I selected the Mirror sync option, added the drives and folders and hit comparison. It took a long time so left it overnight. It is reporting that my C:, which is a 512gb drive with about 342gb of files on it as having 10.2 terrabytes of data! (stated in the overview panel). Attempting to sync said the target drive didn't have enough room as it is only 4tb.

I've checked the cluster size for the C: drive and my destination drive and they are both 4k.

Anyone know what I have done wrong?

Many thanks!

John

[Gianni1962]

Manual - Comparison Settings
https://freefilesync.org/manual.php?topic=comparison-settings

Symbolic Link Handling
FreeFileSync lets you choose to include symbolic links (also called symlinks or soft links) when scanning directories rather than skipping over them. When included, you can select between two ways to handle them:

Follow: Treat symbolic links like the object they are pointing to. Links pointing to directories are traversed like ordinary directories and the target of each link is copied during synchronization.

As link: Include the symbolic link object directly. Symbolic links will be shown as separate entities. Links pointing to directories are not traversed and the link object itself is copied during synchronization.

Note
• FreeFileSync considers the following items as "symbolic links":
– file system symbolic links
– volume mount points (NTFS)
– junction points (NTFS)
– WSL symlinks
– Google Drive shortcuts
• Windows: Copying symbolic links requires that FreeFileSync is started with administrator rights.

Is it possible that you have choose to Include symbolic links and also choose Follow instead of As link and you have Symbolic Links pointing to another disk or network drive?

[johneg]

Thank you very much for this detailed response. I did run it with administrative privileges because it was coming up with access denied errors when first attempting to scan.

Sounds like I need to change the option to As link.

Again really appreciate your time, I will investigate further with the information provided, cheers!

[Gianni1962]

I ran the following test on a PC that doesn't have symbolic links created by me, which therefore only contains the standard Windows 10 symbolic links.

FFS running as Administrator
Mirror sync of the C: drive, starting from \
Symbolic links set to Follow

This sync would result in a copy of 2.69 TB instead of just 682 GB.

In my various Sync configurations, the Include symbolic links option is deactivated.

[johneg]

If I run in admin it still gives me incorrect reading of 10.2 terrabytes for 334 gigs of data. I have symbolic links unchecked. If I run without admin priviges, it cannot write sync.ffs_lock file on C: drive, and throws up 60 cannot access errors. I just run the sync anyway and hope it is not a big deal.

[Gianni1962]

Backing up the entire C: drive with FFS is not a good idea, there are more suitable tools for this.

With FFS, it's better to select only specific folders containing data.

Anyway, my guess is that the disk has some logical corruption.
I suggest you to check and correct it with the following instructions, which are required to run a chkdsk at startup:

- close all open programs
- open a Command Prompt as Administrator
- chkdsk C: /f
- select Yes to schedule to the next time the system restarts
- reboot the pc

Run the Compare again with symbolic links unchecked and see if anything has changed.

[johneg]

Very true Gianni, I think I was just being lazy not wanting to dig through all the folders that contain data that I need to save, there are quite a few. I will use something that can make a disk image for a full system restore incase of the windows drive failure. I will run chkdsk as well, many thanks for the advice.

[xCSxXenon]

Surely it's likely that a single, or few, folder(s) are the cause of this size. After a comparison, do you see any folders in the bottom-left panel with abnormally large size?