Solved How can I gain available storage on an external drive?

caffeine · Apr 2, 2023

OS: windows 11 home 22H2

I have a new Seagate 8TB external drive. Free space is 7.27TB, leaving roughly 730GB of used space. I know that some space must be reserved for the drive to function properly. How much of this reserved space can I recover as available space? How do I perform this task (stepwise instructions, please).

Thanks in advance for helpful replies.

regards,
caffeine

Try3 · Apr 2, 2023

There is no recoverable space because the difference is merely in the terminology used & in some (IDEMA) factors that manufacturer's rarely explain.
If any space is being used by bundled utilities on the disk then they will be visible in File explorer.

If I were you, I would just accept that [in Windows terms] its capacity is 7.27TB.
If you are a gluten for punishment and enjoy technical discussions that do not result in any practical benefits then you can read this:
Samsung explanation seems to make sense [my #21, 23] - TenForums

Using Samsung's explanation, your 8TB (8000GB) is
8000*(1000/1024)^2*approx93% = 7.095TB as it would be reported by Windows.
So I think there is nothing to recover.

All the best,
Denis

glasskuter · Apr 2, 2023

You can't gain any more space than what's already available. Drive manufacturers calculate the size of their drives in decimal bytes. Windows uses binary bytes to calculate.

Why Does My SSD Show Up As Smaller Than Advertised?

f you look at the specifications of any storage device, you will see a note that says something along the lines of ”1 GB = 1 billion bytes. Actual usable capacity may vary.”

www.crucial.com

Try3 · Apr 2, 2023

Dear Texas lady,

Your link is not the whole story. Crucial omits a key factor, the IDEMA standards definition, and claims the difference is entirely mathematical. It is not.
Crucial would have you believe that Windows would recognise caffeine's new 8TB disk as 7.63TB. It does not.

Please read my link.

All the best,
Denis

MisterEd · Apr 2, 2023

Try3 said:
Dear Texas lady,

Your link is not the whole story. Crucial omits a key factor, the IDEMA standards definition, and claims the difference is entirely mathematical. It is not.
Crucial would have you believe that Windows would recognise caffeine's new 8TB disk as 7.63TB. It does not.

Please read my link.

All the best,
Denis

I searched but couldn't figure out where Samsung got the 93% number.
All I could find was IDEMA Standard LBA 1-03 which doesn't mention that number.

In the past there were threats of lawsuits over this. It might even be possible the 93% number was come up by lawyers that wanted to settle the allegations. There may have been an agreement of 93% as a threshold where drive manufacturers would be safe from future litigation. This is far easier to understand and defend than all the discussion of 1000 vs 1024 and GB vs GiB which just confuses everyone.

BTW, drives are not manufactured to an exact size. Going by the 93% number all it has to have is have 93% available of its advertised size. The actual manufactured size doesn't matter.

For example, my 1TB Samsung 980 M.2 NVME SSD in Disk Management shows 931.39 GB. That is 93.14% of 1000 GB. This may be mixing GB and GiB but no matter. It is just makes it easier to understand for the average person.

Try3 · Apr 2, 2023

I don't know where Samsung got that number from either.

I wonder if it might just be the default they use in their own manufacturing in order to ensure they remain on the good side of the IDEMA standard.
In other words, I wonder if Samsung decides what size disk they want to sell then they tell their manufacturing wing to make disks that are [100/93]% of that intended size.

I've seen some disks that only just exceed the (1000/1024)^2*93% level {i.e. 89% overall of the nominal 1TB} and others, like your 1TB M.2, that achieve almost (1000/1024)^2 of the nominal 1TB [1000GB] {i.e. almost 95%}.
- I have examples of both but cannot make out any pattern to the behaviour.
- It's possible that it's my M.2s & SSDs that achieve (1000/1024)^2 of the nominal 1TB [1000GB] and my HDDs that are only 93% of that.

All the best,
Denis

cereberus · Apr 2, 2023

The confusion arises as the strict definition of 1 TB is 1000*1000*1000*1000

However Windows defines 1 TB as 1024*1024*1024*1024

This is just historic nomenclature. It dates back to when memory was measured in kilobytes and difference between 1024 and 1000 was tiny. But as you get multiples, the difference multipes as below.

The modern convention is to call 1 TB based on 1024 multiples 1 TiB

i.e. 1 TB= 0.9095 Tib

thus 8 TB = 7.27 TiB

In essence, disk manufacturers are being disingenuous, using strict definition of TB when Windows uses a historically "inaccurate" definition.
This makes people think drives have more capacity than they really have.

To turn it around, if you try and copy 8 TB of data from windows to external drive, you are really trying to copy 8,796,093,022,208 bytes of data to a drive that only holds 8,000,0000,000,000 bytes of data and it will not fit.

cereberus · Apr 2, 2023

Try3 said:
There is no recoverable space because the difference is merely in the terminology used & in some (IDEMA) factors that manufacturer's rarely explain.
If any space is being used by bundled utilities on the disk then they will be visible in File explorer.

If I were you, I would just accept that [in Windows terms] its capacity is 7.27TB.
If you are a gluten for punishment and enjoy technical discussions that do not result in any practical benefits then you can read this:
Samsung explanation seems to make sense [my #21, 23] - TenForums

Using Samsung's explanation, your 8TB (8000GB) is
8000*(1000/1024)^2*approx93% = 7.095TB as it would be reported by Windows.
So I think there is nothing to recover.

All the best,
Denis

The maths is wrong above.

1 TB = (1000/1024)^4 = 0.9095 TiB

8 TB = 8*0.9095 = 7.276 TiB

Samsung 93% applies to capacities quoted in Gigabytes not Terabytes

(1000/1024)^3 = 0.931

1 kb = (1000/1024)^1 kib
1 Mb = (1000/1024)^2 Mib
1 Gb = (1000/1024)^3 Gib
1 TB = (1000/1024)^4 Tib
1 PB = (1000/1024)^5 Pib (Petabytes)

etc.

Try3 · Apr 2, 2023

I was trying to avoid all use of the terms GiB, TiB.
I thought it best to only refer to the nominal capacity & the Windows-recognised capacity [the terms the OP used] and to adhere to the Samsung explanation.

Denis

cereberus · Apr 2, 2023

Try3 said:
I was trying to avoid all use of the term TiB.
I thought it best to only refer to the nominal capacity & the Windows-recognised capacity.

Denis

No problem with that but the maths was basically wrong.

Lots of people use the 0.931 factor knowing a 1000 GB drive is seen by Windows as 931 GB.

But people forget that that an 8000 GB drive is seen by Windows as 7448 GB, but if that is quoted in Terabytes on the Windows basis, you have to divide by a further 1024 (7448/1024= 7.27 TB)

Indeed 8 TB drive is 7.27 TB.
If they quoted it as 8000 GB, Windows would say 7448 GB.

It all comes down to how you are displaying capacity in Windows i.e. you divide by 1.024 as you go up the size series.

Re. your quote - This is not true.
"In other words, I wonder if Samsung decides what size disk they want to sell then they tell their manufacturing wing to make disks that are [100/93]% of that intended size."

They simply quote it in the strict SI definition kilo, mega, giga, tera in multiples of 1000, knowing Windows uses multiples of 1024. It is just a marketing con and beauty is they cannot be judged by consumer groups to be misleading the public!

caffeine · Apr 2, 2023

Thanks everyone for the replies.
I was already familiar with the 1000* and 1024* factors for computational purposes. However, I had always assumed that the difference between advertised and real capacity was something very different. I expected the difference in available storage was because of reserved space for MBR, factory installed software for backup features, etc. With that in mind the difference on this drive seemed to be excessive.

regards,
caffeine

spapakons · Apr 3, 2023

I don't know how much gain you can get, but I remember using third party applications such as Minitool Partition Manager to format disks with as small as possible size of "group of data" (sorry, I don't recall the correct term right now) to get some small space gain. For example a 4GB can be 4000 x 1MB or 8000 x 512KB or... you get the idea. You have to find the minimum unit to use so that you have the same capacity with smaller pieces. As you may know all files are writen on disk on areas defined by these pieces. If the file is for example 35MB it will take 35x 1024KB space or 70 x 512KB space. If it is a little larger, it will take 36 x 1024KB or 71 x 512KB space, you see the little gain here using multiple pieces of the smaller size. This trick won't make your disk larger than it is, but it will make your files take less space on disk than they would if it was formatted using larger pieces. You can try it on small disks, but you wouldn't see much benefit with huge disks like a 8TB.

Try3 · Apr 3, 2023

spapakons said:
"group of data" (sorry, I don't recall the correct term right now)

Cluster size, I imagine.
MTPW does not state its default Cluster size anywhere that I've been able to find

All the best,
Denis

spapakons · Apr 3, 2023

Yes, doesn't matter, you get the point. If I remember correctly, you can also select the size of the allocation unit when formatting a disk in Windows. In Minitool Partition Tool you can see the result graphically before you apply it. In Windows you just choose a size and start.

MisterEd · Apr 3, 2023

Like I said I think the 93% guidance was invented as a goal for drive manufactures so people could stop arguing about the difference between GB vs GiB. It is OK to discuss the theory of it but for practical matters it is not important.

spapakons · Apr 3, 2023

A 120GB SSD is actually 111.76GB, is annoying but I could live with that. However an 8TB being only 7.28TB this is very annoying.

cereberus · Apr 3, 2023

MisterEd said:
Like I said I think the 93% guidance was invented as a goal for drive manufactures so people could stop arguing about the difference between GB vs GiB. It is OK to discuss the theory of it but for practical matters it is not important.

Groan - there was no blooming invention of 93.1% guidance - it is simply a mathematical achronism

read my posts the factor changes according to what you quote the units in

bytes - 100%
kilobytes - 97.6%
megabytes - 95.4%
gigabytes - 93.1%
terabytes - 90.9%

93.1% only applies if you quote sizes in Gigabytes.

OP was quoting in Terabytes, and so factor is 90.9%.

There was no goal invented as by drive manufacturers. They simply quote in pure SI standards!
It is Windows that confuses things. The drive manufacturers exploit this confusion to make it look as if their drives are bigger than they are. Now we have Terabyte drives, the difference is 9.1%.

When we get Petabyte drive, the difference will be 11.3%.

cereberus · Apr 3, 2023

spapakons said:
A 120GB SSD is actually 111.76GB, is annoying but I could live with that. However an 8TB being only 7.28TB this is very annoying.

Deities Fangs!

You are not being robbed - it is just a mathematical illusion caused by Windows incorrectly quoting storage sizes as TB when in fact the fugigure they quote is TiB.

MisterEd · Apr 3, 2023

cereberus said:
Groan - there was no blooming invention of 93.1% guidance - it is simply a mathematical achronism

read my posts the factor changes according to what you quote the units in

bytes - 100%
kilobytes - 97.6%
megabytes - 95.4%
gigabytes - 93.1%
terabytes - 90.9%

93.1% only applies if you quote sizes in Gigabytes.

OP was quoting in Terabytes, and so factor is 90.9%.

There was no goal invented as by drive manufacturers. They simply quote in pure SI standards!
It is Windows that confuses things. The drive manufacturers exploit this confusion to make it look as if their drives are bigger than they are. Now we have Terabyte drives, the difference is 9.1%.

When we get Petabyte drive, the difference will be 11.3%.

If Samsung quoted a standard then show me the standard. I haven't found where such a standard even exists.

spapakons · Apr 3, 2023

cereberus said:
Deities Fangs!

You are not being robbed - it is just a mathematical illusion caused by Windows incorrectly quoting storage sizes as TB when in fact the fugigure they quote is TiB.

I didn't said I was robbed, I know what I am buing, but it is annoying nevertheless.

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