Question Same files, different size on external SSD?

[cyberjap]

I copied a folder whose contents are entirely just pics and videos from Instagram stories (total size around 159 GB), from my Samsung Galaxy S21 5G to a brand new and empty Samsung T7 external SSD. I check the occupied size on the T7, and it's about 172 GB (13 GB more)...

My guess is that the culprit is formatting differences and internal fragmentation but I just want to make sure the math reasonably adds up before deleting the folder from my phone to replenish storage space.

 

[B. Diddy]

Are you checking the SSD's storage information on a Windows PC? If so, turn on the Show Hidden Files/Folders option in Windows Files Explorer, and see if there are a lot of hidden files or folders (whose filenames start with a "."). I'm wondering if you might have copied over a .thumbnails folder.

 

[cyberjap]

Are you checking the SSD's storage information on a Windows PC? If so, turn on the Show Hidden Files/Folders option in Windows Files Explorer, and see if there are a lot of hidden files or folders (whose filenames start with a "."). I'm wondering if you might have copied over a .thumbnails folder.

Nope, checked it on my phone, still connected to the external SSD, as reported by My Files after the process completed.

Edit: I checked and there are no hidden files.

 

[B. Diddy]

How big is the storage on your phone, and how big is the SSD? If the SSD is much larger, it might have to do with this: https://www.businesstechweekly.com/tech-insights/size-vs-size-on-disk/

 

[cyberjap]

How big is the storage on your phone, and how big is the SSD? If the SSD is much larger, it might have to do with this: https://www.businesstechweekly.com/tech-insights/size-vs-size-on-disk/

256GB internal storage for the phone and 2TB for the external SSD.

Yeah, I think that article is talking about the same suspicion I'm having. I don't know how to quantitatively check if it's because of this or something else.

 

[B. Diddy]

What filesystem is the SSD formatted to? FAT32, exFAT, NTFS?

 

[cyberjap]

What filesystem is the SSD formatted to? FAT32, exFAT, NTFS?

I believe out of the box, the default is exFAT. I did not format it and used it right away.

 

[B. Diddy]

Check the allocation unit size on the SSD: https://www.howtogeek.com/136078/what-should-i-set-the-allocation-unit-size-to-when-formatting/. The bigger the allocation unit size, the more likely that a given number of files will take up more disk space.