What is reserving this disk space?

[imported_Sasha]

I originally posted this in the General Hardware forum and quickly got no where.

When I setup a PC I typically configure the Pagefile (swap/virtual memory) to use only the boot drive. I set the Recycle Bin to 0%, and disable System Restore. I also set Temp Internet Files folder to minimum (1MB).

I recently nuked and paved a new PC where I have a Maxtor 6Y080P0 80GB boot drive sharing (w/Pioneer A07 DVD writer) a single IDE channel (IDE0) on an Abit AA8 motherboard. This is an Intel controller. Also, I have a pair of Maxtor 6Y200P0 200GB data drives configured identically using independent IDE channels (IDE1 and IDE2) on a Promise Ultra100 TX2 PCI controller. These data drives were setup well after the XP Profession re-install, which included SP2, all critical updates, and updated drivers, etc.

During an investigation for a problem involving an inability to rip a DVD image to a data disk that was about 60% consumed, I started looking around and found several things happening, but the one that intrigued me the most was what appeared to be a portion of each disk being reserved. No big deal until I determined the amount was about 12.5% of a given disk (that's about 24-25GB!).

I know its not virtual memory as this is only setup for on the boot-drive, and only 1.5GB in size, not 25GB. Its not system restore, because I turned it off on the boot drive and then disabled the service well before I even partitioned and formatted (NTSF) the two data drives.

Anyone got any ideas?

 

[MobiusPizza]

That's completely normal~
Many people have been asking this question solely because of the harddisk manufacturer's marketing techniques.

In HDD's terms, 1GB = 1 =000 000 000 Bytes
In Window and normal computing terms, 1GB = 1073 741 824 Bytes (1KB = 1024 B, 1MB = 1024 KB so on)

In your case, 2 Maxtor 200GB RAID 0 gives 400 GB in HDD terms,
which means 400 000 000 000 Bytes.

Divide that by 1024^3 you get 372.5 GB (Normal term) of actual space.
That's about 25% you meant

Which means your HDD are fine

 

[MobiusPizza]

Anyway, windows recycle bin, system restore, etc does not hide the space they use. The capacity diagram in Windows always show the correct partitioned space of the drive.

 

[imported_Sasha]

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
That's completely normal~
Many people have been asking this question solely because of the harddisk manufacturer's marketing techniques.

In HDD's terms, 1GB = 1 =000 000 000 Bytes
In Window and normal computing terms, 1GB = 1073 741 824 Bytes (1KB = 1024 B, 1MB = 1024 KB so on)

In your case, 2 Maxtor 200GB RAID 0 gives 400 GB in HDD terms,
which means 400 000 000 000 Bytes.

Divide that by 1024^3 you get 372.5 GB (Normal term) of actual space.
That's about 25% you meant

Which means your HDD are fine

I think you misinterpreted what I am saying. I am saying that in Disk Defragmenter you can see 12.5% of the viewable disk's formatted 189.92GB not being accessed. Have a look here (if this works): http://forum.abit-usa.com/attachment.ph...ee605eea12deb7a7d867f7a1&postid=540583

 

[MobiusPizza]

Ah sorry about that really. You meant the green bits?
Or your whole drive is supposed to be empty?

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Sasha

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
That's completely normal~
Many people have been asking this question solely because of the harddisk manufacturer's marketing techniques.

In HDD's terms, 1GB = 1 =000 000 000 Bytes
In Window and normal computing terms, 1GB = 1073 741 824 Bytes (1KB = 1024 B, 1MB = 1024 KB so on)

In your case, 2 Maxtor 200GB RAID 0 gives 400 GB in HDD terms,
which means 400 000 000 000 Bytes.

Divide that by 1024^3 you get 372.5 GB (Normal term) of actual space.
That's about 25% you meant

Which means your HDD are fine

I think you misinterpreted what I am saying. I am saying that in Disk Defragmenter you can see 12.5% of the viewable disk's formatted 189.92GB not being accessed. Have a look here (if this works): http://forum.abit-usa.com/attachment.ph...ee605eea12deb7a7d867f7a1&postid=540583

What part of 'DONT POST TROUBLESHOOTING PROBLEMS HERE' do you not quite understand?

 

[imported_Sasha]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Sasha

Originally posted by: AnnihilatorX
That's completely normal~
Many people have been asking this question solely because of the harddisk manufacturer's marketing techniques.

In HDD's terms, 1GB = 1 =000 000 000 Bytes
In Window and normal computing terms, 1GB = 1073 741 824 Bytes (1KB = 1024 B, 1MB = 1024 KB so on)

In your case, 2 Maxtor 200GB RAID 0 gives 400 GB in HDD terms,
which means 400 000 000 000 Bytes.

Divide that by 1024^3 you get 372.5 GB (Normal term) of actual space.
That's about 25% you meant

Which means your HDD are fine

I think you misinterpreted what I am saying. I am saying that in Disk Defragmenter you can see 12.5% of the viewable disk's formatted 189.92GB not being accessed. Have a look here (if this works): http://forum.abit-usa.com/attachment.ph...ee605eea12deb7a7d867f7a1&postid=540583

What part of 'DONT POST TROUBLESHOOTING PROBLEMS HERE' do you not quite understand?

bsobel:

It would have been more respectful had you a) sent me a PM asking that question as 'praise in public punish in private is a more winning philosophy than the route you did choose, b) ask if this was more troubleshooting than 'solving the unknown puzzle' as I clearly state no one in the General Hardware forum knew, c) simply deleted the thread and notified me of any inappropriateness, etc.

But I do understand that your need for personal satisfaction out-weighned any concept of being a 'good' moderator through illustration of good moderation. You see, I wasn't looking to 'troubleshoot' but to investigate why this appears to be a prominent, yet completely unexplained, phenonema spanning all of my computers that do not seem to discriminate based on drive manufacturer, controller type, operating system setup, drive configuration, etc.

Its a mystery that apparent has two universes to stump people with. One I posted on and the other you just identified in yourself. Good day! Oh, I almost forgot, since you tossed 'praise in public, punish in private' out the window, I returned the favor.

 

[Jeff7]

Might it be space reserved for the filesystem overhead? I'm not sure about how that works, but as I understand it, NTFS has more overhead than FAT-based file systems.

 

[Jiggz]

Can you run Chkdsk and find out for me what is the total free space for each of the drives in question. Chkdsk will tell you the total formatted capacity and also what is the total available. If the total space don't jibe, try emptying both drives and ran chkdsk again. Are the drives in raid setup? Are they partitioned with logical drives? Remember, disabling Recycle Bin has to be done on each of the drives and not just on the C: drive.

 

[Hamilton]