I have an issue with a couple of 4TB Seagate drives under Win10, NTFS with identical block allocations etc. Both report as having capacity 3.63TB (4,000,778,633,216 bytes).
I am using FreeFileSync to compare the contents (file time and size), and am getting that they are identical as reported by FFS. However Windows reports that one drive has more than 200 GB less than the other available. I am currently doing a file content compare using FFS, but my guess is that they will report having identical contents. I have seen another person report a similar issue when using FFS on another site, so that is why I am posting this here. It will take the best part of a day to compare the two drives' contents (3.27TB or 3.48TB, depending on which one I look at). I have checked the usual suspects to explain the difference in free space, including obvious ones like the recycle bin, allocation unit sizes etc. etc. and can see no difference. I've also chkdsk'd them and optimised using the Win10 optimisation tool, which anyway reported both as being 0% fragmented.
I wonder if this could be an issue with the FFS database. I thought I might search for and delete them, but I cannot find the database on either of the drives. I am looking for sync.ffs_db. Has the name changed and has anyone else experienced a similar issue?
Explorer size mismatch: related to database?
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Most of the time these differences are due to what might be stored in files or folders excluded via the exclude filter.
As an experiment, you might completely empty the exclude filter and re-run the comparison.
If you are afraid that running such comparison will take too long, you might (again for the sake of the experiment) empty the exclude filter (cut) and move that content to the include filter (paste), and then run the compare.
You are then only comparing the files/folders normally excluded form the comparison ... and determine if that justifies the differences in size.
As an experiment, you might completely empty the exclude filter and re-run the comparison.
If you are afraid that running such comparison will take too long, you might (again for the sake of the experiment) empty the exclude filter (cut) and move that content to the include filter (paste), and then run the compare.
You are then only comparing the files/folders normally excluded form the comparison ... and determine if that justifies the differences in size.
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Thanks, Plerry and Zenju.
The exclusions filter was for:
\System Volume Information\
\$Recycle.Bin\
\RECYCLER\
\RECYCLED\
*\desktop.ini
*\thumbs.db
When I enable system folder/files view I have a System Volume Information and $Recycle.Bin, but they do not occupy any significant space (129 bytes) and both drives have them. There are no ini or db files. This is not the issue. I tried running FFS without any exclusions and FFS could not access the folders on either drive as you'd expect.
To clarify, it is not the number of files that Explorer reports as being different but the size on the disk occupied by all files.
It may well be a Windows issue. Explorer seems incapable of reporting the number of files on each drive, which is perplexing in itself. The other person who had the same issue ended up re-formatting and recopying all the files and his drives now report the same freespace.
Another possibility is to do with symbolic links. I think that some software I use may have created symbolic links. Is it possible that such links are not being copied as links, but as the files themselves (that is, FFS copies an extra copy of the file itself or does not detect that it is a symbolic link)?
If possible, I'd really like to check the size of the FFS databases, before reformatting the drives. Is it easy to find these?
The exclusions filter was for:
\System Volume Information\
\$Recycle.Bin\
\RECYCLER\
\RECYCLED\
*\desktop.ini
*\thumbs.db
When I enable system folder/files view I have a System Volume Information and $Recycle.Bin, but they do not occupy any significant space (129 bytes) and both drives have them. There are no ini or db files. This is not the issue. I tried running FFS without any exclusions and FFS could not access the folders on either drive as you'd expect.
To clarify, it is not the number of files that Explorer reports as being different but the size on the disk occupied by all files.
It may well be a Windows issue. Explorer seems incapable of reporting the number of files on each drive, which is perplexing in itself. The other person who had the same issue ended up re-formatting and recopying all the files and his drives now report the same freespace.
Another possibility is to do with symbolic links. I think that some software I use may have created symbolic links. Is it possible that such links are not being copied as links, but as the files themselves (that is, FFS copies an extra copy of the file itself or does not detect that it is a symbolic link)?
If possible, I'd really like to check the size of the FFS databases, before reformatting the drives. Is it easy to find these?
