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Incomplete torrents use much more storage than I have downloaded

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 2:54 am
by Tedaa
Hi guys ;)

First, thanks for a great program. Second, Im not sure this is the right forum...

I tried to find some info about this here and on google but I gave up so here I am ;)
Anyway, when I look through my incomplete downloads I see that many of them take much more storage place than what I have downloaded so far. When I look closer the size is the total size of the torrent and seem very much like some kind of allocation but only for 90% of the downloads.

When I right click on the incomplete download folder and choose properties this is what I get:
Size: 241 GB
Size on disk: 409 GB

In options "pre-allocate disk space for all files" is not enabled and I cant find any other settings that will have effect on this.

Any suggestions and tips is appreciated :)

Re: Incomplete torrents use much more storage than I have downloaded

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 10:59 am
by ciaobaby
It is the minimum cluster size, called 'allocation units' by Windows in whatever disk filing system you are using.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/140365

Re: Incomplete torrents use much more storage than I have downloaded

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 11:01 am
by ciaobaby
Oh and;


No you can't, unless you reformat your drive and set a smaller cluster size

Re: Incomplete torrents use much more storage than I have downloaded

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 11:52 am
by Tedaa
Thanks for quick answer ciaobaby :)

hehe...hmm..ok, but why dont these affect all my other files? I have folders with many small files and many big files and the effect is like 1-2% due to cluster size, so what is different here? Is torrents broken down in very small files when downloading? If thats the case what cluster size is recommend?

I have default ntfs cluster size of 4k and it works great for everything except torrentsĀ  ???

Re: Incomplete torrents use much more storage than I have downloaded

Posted: Mon Apr 07, 2014 7:11 pm
by ciaobaby
If the payload is incomplete, it will be still in disconnected pieces.
Is torrents broken down in very small files when downloading?
Yes, that's how BitTorrent works and why it is known as a "bit torrent"

https://wiki.theory.org/BitTorrentSpecification

http://lifehacker.com/285489/a-beginner ... bittorrent

Every file that is smaller than 4k (4096 bytes) uses one cluster on the disk, so 100 10byte files actually uses 400 kB

Re: Incomplete torrents use much more storage than I have downloaded

Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2014 12:56 am
by Tedaa
Thanks for helping out and for the links for further info, very helpful :)