two exact same drives, different capacities

philjayj · 26 Mar 2008 at 22:07

Hi, any help at all would be appreciated.

I have two exact same drives (Seagate 750GB ST3750330AS), both are brand new, and both have a formatted capacity of 698GB.

One drive has 490GBs of data on it, with 208GBs free. Now, this is the strange part, I copied the contents of the above drive to another, but this drive reports to be using only 431GBs with 267GBs free.

Bearing in mind that one drive is an exact copy of the other, why is there such a big difference in numbers?

Thanks

Phil

rpstewart · 26 Mar 2008 at 22:25

Did the source drive for the copy have an OS on it and you copied it with a simple drag and drop? There are plenty of hidden files on an OS partition which won't copy with a simple drag and drop, that would account for the difference.

philjayj · 26 Mar 2008 at 22:26

Nope, it was merely a spare drive and so is the other. I copied the files using Syncback SE.

rpstewart · 26 Mar 2008 at 22:30

Recycle bin contents, System Restore points?

Try using something like TreeSize Free to compare the sizes of each of the folders on the two drives.

philjayj · 26 Mar 2008 at 22:42

YAY!! You're a genius! I didn't think system restore was enabled, but just to be sure, I took a look and it was. So I disabled it and deleted the restore points, and now both drives read exactly the same.

Thanks for your help.