What is the difference btw "Size" and "Size on disk"

[Passions]

Size on disk refers to the total size of clusters the file is using as opposed to the size the fize uses, whatever the hell that means. Can someone clarify and tell me in english? MUAHAH THANX:|

 

[Nothinman]

A formatted partition is divided into clusters (default is 4K on NTFS I believe) and each file takes up a multiple of those clusters, any space not used in the last cluster is wasted.

So if you have a 1K file it takes up 4K on disk and a 5K file will take up 8K.

 

[Passions]

wow great, that was perfect. thanx

 

[bsobel]

Adding to that, if your using NTFS compression, you can wind up with a file that is say 1meg, but is only taken 1/2 meg of physical disk space.
Bill