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Corsair Flash Memory seems OUTRAGEOUS wasteful of memory space...!


Hi

I have a brand new Corsair Flash Voyager Memory Drive (2GB).

It seems to be ASTONNISHINGLY extravagant at storing data.
Apparently I have filled up the ENTIRE flash drive (2GB ) with just
0.98 GB (1,053,551,746 bytes) of data.
[ It is taking up 1.90 GB (2,050,129,920 bytes) on the Flash drive...]

Have I formatted the drive in the wrong way or something?!

There are only 41,292 files located in 862 folders.

Whereas on my Hard disk
1.08 GB (1,170,048,529 bytes) of fits into
1.18 GB (1,269,673,984 bytes) on the disk
which is 42,336 files in 991 folders.

Thus I make it that a mere 8.5% of hard disk space is wasted
on my Hard disk, whereas my Corsair Flash drive appears to be wasting
about 49% !!!

- Is this normal?

- Am I doing anything wrong?

- Is there anything I can do (apart from Zipping everything which will
take hours & hours!)


Ship
Shiperton Henethe

P.S. I am using Windows2000

ship wrote:
> Corsair Flash Memory seems OUTRAGEOUS wasteful of memory space...!
>
>
> Hi
>
> I have a brand new Corsair Flash Voyager Memory Drive (2GB).
>
> It seems to be ASTONNISHINGLY extravagant at storing data.
> Apparently I have filled up the ENTIRE flash drive (2GB ) with just
> 0.98 GB (1,053,551,746 bytes) of data.
> [ It is taking up 1.90 GB (2,050,129,920 bytes) on the Flash drive...]
>
> Have I formatted the drive in the wrong way or something?!
>
> There are only 41,292 files located in 862 folders.
>
> Whereas on my Hard disk
> 1.08 GB (1,170,048,529 bytes) of fits into
> 1.18 GB (1,269,673,984 bytes) on the disk
> which is 42,336 files in 991 folders.
>
> Thus I make it that a mere 8.5% of hard disk space is wasted
> on my Hard disk, whereas my Corsair Flash drive appears to be wasting
> about 49% !!!
>
> - Is this normal?
>
> - Am I doing anything wrong?
>
> - Is there anything I can do (apart from Zipping everything which will
> take hours & hours!)
>
>
> Ship
> Shiperton Henethe
>
> P.S. I am using Windows2000
>

Is your Flash memory formatted as FAT (or FAT32)? Is your hard disk
formatted as NTFS?

Your average file size is 25 kbytes.

On my 1 GB flash drive, the minumum allocation of storage is 16 kbytes.
A 700 byte file will use 16 kbytes of disk space.

A 25 kbyte file will use 32 kbytes of space (two allocation units) and 7
of that will be wasted. The 700 byte file will use 1 allocation unit and
waste 15 kbytes.

On a hard drive with NTFS (the one in my system), the allocation is 4
kbytes at a time. This is much more efficient. The same 25 kbyte file
will use 28 kbyte, only wasting 3. The 700 byte file will only waste 3
kbytes.

Look at a small file on you Flash drive and see how much space is used.
You will see what your minimum allocation size is.

FAT on large volumes is inefficient. You might be able to format the
Flash drive differently, but then it may no longer work on some systems.
{I'm not sure Windows will let you format the Flash drive as NTFS.)

To be more efficient, your file size should be several times your
allocation size. Zipping the files is one way to get that effect. You
don't have to may one big zip file. Zipping 40-50 files at a time will
result in archives that are about 1 MB. This will reduce the 'waste' to
a small percentage. Also, your files may compress well, resulting in
more efficient storage.

What you are seeing is normal when using many small files on a FAT
formatted volume.

Hope this helps.

craigm

ship <> wrote:
>Corsair Flash Memory seems OUTRAGEOUS wasteful of memory space...!

Which has nothing at all to do with the memory card and everything to
do with the file system.

>I have a brand new Corsair Flash Voyager Memory Drive (2GB).
>
>It seems to be ASTONNISHINGLY extravagant at storing data.
>Apparently I have filled up the ENTIRE flash drive (2GB ) with just
>0.98 GB (1,053,551,746 bytes) of data.
>[ It is taking up 1.90 GB (2,050,129,920 bytes) on the Flash drive...]

You have too much free time.

>Have I formatted the drive in the wrong way or something?!
>
>There are only 41,292 files located in 862 folders.

"Only" 41 thousand files?!?

>Whereas on my Hard disk
>1.08 GB (1,170,048,529 bytes) of fits into
>1.18 GB (1,269,673,984 bytes) on the disk
>which is 42,336 files in 991 folders.
>
>Thus I make it that a mere 8.5% of hard disk space is wasted
>on my Hard disk, whereas my Corsair Flash drive appears to be wasting
>about 49% !!!
>
>- Is this normal?

Yes.

>- Am I doing anything wrong?

No.

>- Is there anything I can do (apart from Zipping everything which will
>take hours & hours!)

Stop worrying about it. In the tradeoff between speed and storage
efficiency, lots of small files cost you storage efficiency.

--
Ray Fischer

"Ray Fischer" <> wrote in message
news:dlmggn$nrn$...
> ship <> wrote:
>>Corsair Flash Memory seems OUTRAGEOUS wasteful of memory space...!
>
> Which has nothing at all to do with the memory card and everything to
> do with the file system.
>
>>I have a brand new Corsair Flash Voyager Memory Drive (2GB).
>>
>>It seems to be ASTONNISHINGLY extravagant at storing data.
>>Apparently I have filled up the ENTIRE flash drive (2GB ) with just
>>0.98 GB (1,053,551,746 bytes) of data.
>>[ It is taking up 1.90 GB (2,050,129,920 bytes) on the Flash drive...]
>
> You have too much free time.
>
>>Have I formatted the drive in the wrong way or something?!
>>
>>There are only 41,292 files located in 862 folders.
>
> "Only" 41 thousand files?!?
>
>>Whereas on my Hard disk
>>1.08 GB (1,170,048,529 bytes) of fits into
>>1.18 GB (1,269,673,984 bytes) on the disk
>>which is 42,336 files in 991 folders.
>>
>>Thus I make it that a mere 8.5% of hard disk space is wasted
>>on my Hard disk, whereas my Corsair Flash drive appears to be wasting
>>about 49% !!!
>>
>>- Is this normal?
>
> Yes.
>
>>- Am I doing anything wrong?
>
> No.
>
>>- Is there anything I can do (apart from Zipping everything which will
>>take hours & hours!)
>
> Stop worrying about it. In the tradeoff between speed and storage
> efficiency, lots of small files cost you storage efficiency.
>


I am an old timer. I used to be using DOS, Windows 4.1 and Windows 95. When
you format the 2 Gig flash memory into FAT16, each cluster size is 32K
bytes. That means if you store a simple text file of 1K or 2K, it will still
use up 32K bytes of storage space.

FAT16 means is File Allocation Table using 16 bits address to access the
memory. 16 bit address can access 2^16 = 65,536. So that in order to access
everything in 2Gig, each cluster has to be 32K(or 32,76, so that 65,536 x
32,768 = 2,147,483,648 = 2Gig.

If you computer's hard drive is using NTFS, the cluster size is 4K bytes. If
you store a 1K or 2K file, it will still use up 4K bytes of storage.

Your camera probably formatted your Corsair Flash Memory to FAT 16. There is
no choice because that is probably the only acceptable format for your
camera. You should have no problem if you really use the flash memory for
digital photo because the photo files are usually extremely big compared to
the 32K cluster size so that there will hardly be any waste.

I think this well explains what you saw.


Wannabe
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