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Usb flash drive help

F

Firefox264

Member
I checked my USB drives total capacity and it was 3.73 Gb. I formatted my flash drive and then checked the capacity again and it was dropped to 3.72 Gb ? Can anyone please tell me what happened here ? Will it happen every time i format any flash drive?
 
Firefox264,

He was referring to the fact that each cell (ie, each storage unit) in a flash memory module can only be changed a certain number of times before it stops reliably storing the value. Don't worry about that though, generally speaking the number of writes is likely a lot higher than the lifespan of your thumbdrive. I'm don't know why he gave this answer to your question, they're unrelated.

As to your question about capacity, when you say "capacity" are you talking about the "free space" you see in Computer? My first guess is that when you formatted the drive you changed the filesystem. (For example, changing from FAT to FAT32 will report a reduction in the "free space" of the drive.)

Basically each filesystem has a different type of database that keeps track of all the files on the drive. Different types of databases will be different sizes, and the "free space" you see is whatever room is left on the drive after some storage is reserved for the database.

To check the actual total storage on the drive, pretend you're going to format it and the format utility should tell you the total capacity.
 
trelin said:
Firefox264,

He was referring to the fact that each cell (ie, each storage unit) in a flash memory module can only be changed a certain number of times before it stops reliably storing the value. Don't worry about that though, generally speaking the number of writes is likely a lot higher than the lifespan of your thumbdrive. I'm don't know why he gave this answer to your question, they're unrelated.

As to your question about capacity, when you say "capacity" are you talking about the "free space" you see in Computer? My first guess is that when you formatted the drive you changed the filesystem. (For example, changing from FAT to FAT32 will report a reduction in the "free space" of the drive.)

Basically each filesystem has a different type of database that keeps track of all the files on the drive. Different types of databases will be different sizes, and the "free space" you see is whatever room is left on the drive after some storage is reserved for the database.

To check the actual total storage on the drive, pretend you're going to format it and the format utility should tell you the total capacity.
Click to expand...

I know he totally made me more confused. Anyway from capacity i meant , the total capacity of the flash drive .

I have got a 4 Gb flash drive, i checked its capacity by right clicking the drive and going to properties. I did this before i formatted the drive and it showed 3.73 Gb but after i formatted the flash drive and checked the capacity again using the same method as i mentioned before, it showed 3.72 Gb. I didn't change anything when formatting the flash drive but just clicked format .

How come the capacity dropped from 3.73 to 3.72 ? Thank you
 
Last edited:
Yeah, the properties window is confusing the issue. When it says "capacity" it's actually listing "the total useable space after reserving some for the filesystem". To check the actual capacity, right click the drive and go to Format and see what that says (you don't have to actually format the drive to check this).

For example, formatting a 1GB drive with the default sector sizes (actual capacity 977MB) with FAT gives a total useable capacity of 977MB, whereas FAT32 gives a total useable space of 973MB. For more details this looks like a pretty good summary of the pros/cons of the different filesystems: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-fat16-fat32-ntfs-exfat-usb-flash-drives.html

Mind you, this is just my guess as to why the capacity changed. When you formatted the drive it SHOULD have defaulted to keep the same filesystem, so the "capacity" shouldn't have changed. But, hey, stranger things have happened. 😛
 
trelin said:
Yeah, the properties window is confusing the issue. When it says "capacity" it's actually listing "the total useable space after reserving some for the filesystem". To check the actual capacity, right click the drive and go to Format and see what that says (you don't have to actually format the drive to check this).

For example, formatting a 1GB drive with the default sector sizes (actual capacity 977MB) with FAT gives a total useable capacity of 977MB, whereas FAT32 gives a total useable space of 973MB. For more details this looks like a pretty good summary of the pros/cons of the different filesystems: http://forum.notebookreview.com/har...-fat16-fat32-ntfs-exfat-usb-flash-drives.html

Mind you, this is just my guess as to why the capacity changed. When you formatted the drive it SHOULD have defaulted to keep the same filesystem, so the "capacity" shouldn't have changed. But, hey, stranger things have happened. 😛
Click to expand...

You were right i just checked it using FORMAT and it said the capacity is 3.73 Gb. Even though it says 3.72 in properties. And i can't change the file system to FAT16 as i just checked your link to that website, it said using FAT16 would be better.

Ya mate , i was thinking what the hell happened. And now it turns out nothing has happened 😉 anyway thanks a lot dude.
 
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