Yes its slack. When space is allocated to a file, the file system uses multiples of a certain amount - the cluster size. Usually the file size is not an exact multiple of the allocation size. Therefore the final cluster may not be full, and that waste is called slack. Statistically about half of the last cluster is used. So if you multiply the number of files by the cluster size and take half, that is pretty good guess about the amount of slack. A huge hard drive and tens or hundreds of thousands of files can add up to a lot of slack.
>i defragged, and it didnt do much...
>i was thinking just a format and put everything back on...
>unless there is another alternative.
PowerQuest Partition Magic will resize the clusters without you having to wipe the HD. Irreplaceable files should always be backed up anyway, just in case. There are a few other programs that do the same thing, I believe. Partition Commander. Partition Expert.
If you don't want to use Partition Magic, and you don't mind putting everything back on the HD, then you can format the HD with the NTFS (corrected from HPFS) file system in Windows XP, and the allocation size most likely will be low enough to give you less than 5% slack.
You can also partition the HD into several partitions. The slack will be less because the cluster size chosen is smaller for smaller partitions. But for many people, managing files on multiple disks is a PITA.
But if your HD is getting tight, you are a candidate for a bigger HD. I believe Best Buy has a deal on a 160G Western Digital 7200rpm HD for $130 after rebate.
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