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General Computer Thread

Have any of you ever had this thing, where 2 identical drives with identical content show slightly different free & used space? They are the same exact model of HDD, same visible capacity, down to the last byte.

I hovered over each matching folder for each drive in turn, and those values were all the same. Yet they show a 10GB difference. Hidden items is checked (somehow it stays checked now, which is another Win10 mystery).
J & R Drives Mismatch 1a.jpg

J & R Drives Mismatch 1b.jpg

When selecting all folders within each drive, the numbers of files & folders are the same.
J & R Drives Mismatch 1c.jpg

This kind of thing always drives me nuts.
 
Have any of you ever had this thing, where 2 identical drives with identical content show slightly different free & used space? They are the same exact model of HDD, same visible capacity, down to the last byte.

I hovered over each matching folder for each drive in turn, and those values were all the same. Yet they show a 10GB difference. Hidden items is checked (somehow it stays checked now, which is another Win10 mystery).
View attachment 32586

View attachment 32587

When selecting all folders within each drive, the numbers of files & folders are the same.
View attachment 32588

This kind of thing always drives me nuts.

There’s also an option to hide protected operating system files that I don’t think is turned on because otherwise there would be a couple of other folders such as recycle bin showing.

a recycle with items in it could account for the difference.

The swap and hibernation files would most likely be on C: unless moved.

For a better view of what’s taking up the space, try Treesize from Jamsoftware. They have a free version or a 30 day trial of the pro version. Don’t know if it has a comparison option (I use it but have never looked for that) but run as administrator and it will show everything on the drive
 
800 watts, at this rate you will need to book a electrican out to install your GPU safely. Lol

Look out for the advent of 2Kw PSUs and increase in demand for 240v power setups in North America.

Users in countries where 240v is the norm should be okay.
 
Europe is mostly 230 volts and you can install a 380v group if you need it...
Having a card pull 800 watts is of course beyond stupid and no one need such a thing unless you're doing an extreme amount of 3D rendering stuff which of course could be done even faster on a render farm...
 
Europe is mostly 230 volts and you can install a 380v group if you need it...
Having a card pull 800 watts is of course beyond stupid and no one need such a thing unless you're doing an extreme amount of 3D rendering stuff which of course could be done even faster on a render farm...

With the sort of power draw I think it's more likely to be a multi-gpu card targetting machine learning/vgpu/rendering - basically a a continuation in the Tesla range.
 
That's a puzzle alright..... Could it be size of sectors?
Anything is possible, but both drives were formatted in AOMEI Partition Assistant using the same settings.

These are the comparisons (Partition Info & File System Info). Something strange with the MFT First Cluster numbers, but not sure if that would cause the apparent 10GB difference.
J & R Drives Mismatch 2a.jpgJ & R Drives Mismatch 2b.jpg


There’s also an option to hide protected operating system files that I don’t think is turned on because otherwise there would be a couple of other folders such as recycle bin showing.

a recycle with items in it could account for the difference.

The swap and hibernation files would most likely be on C: unless moved.

For a better view of what’s taking up the space, try Treesize from Jamsoftware. They have a free version or a 30 day trial of the pro version. Don’t know if it has a comparison option (I use it but have never looked for that) but run as administrator and it will show everything on the drive
A good idea about hidden folders. I changed View to "Show hidden files, folders and drives", but still do not see any semi opaque folders, including any recycle folders.

Generally when I delete anything from a external drive(s), I open the normal Recycle Bin and delete anything in there from the external drive(s). I did open Disk Cleanup for each of the two drives, both show 0 Bytes for Recycle bin.

I think I have one or two apps that can do comparisons, but with them being 4TB drives, I've always been a bit leery about letting it run (probably all day). I may give that a shot tomorrow anyway since it would seem to be the last option.
 
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I think I have one or two apps that can do comparisons, but with them being 4TB drives, I've always been a bit leery about letting it run (probably all day). I may give that a shot tomorrow anyway since it would seem to be the last option.

4TB isn't really that much in this day and age :)

I think running a comparison is pretty much the only way to get to the bottom of it. The difference could well be that there are some files on one drive that aren't on another (believe me - been there done that backing up my my media collection).

Not sure if you picked up on it (and I didn't until looking at it again now) but you've got two images of J: not J: & R:
 
Funny video on LTT about the Del XPS m2010

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4TB isn't really that much in this day and age :)

I think running a comparison is pretty much the only way to get to the bottom of it. The difference could well be that there are some files on one drive that aren't on another (believe me - been there done that backing up my my media collection).

Not sure if you picked up on it (and I didn't until looking at it again now) but you've got two images of J: not J: & R:
Thanks, I fixed the first image. Absolutely no differences there.

And yeah, much bigger drives than 4TB, but it's gonna take a while to compare them. But like I said, I hovered over each matching folder on both drives and never saw any size difference.

I'll do the comparison process now and report back.

ETA: I tried Treesiz. It did show me the recycle bins for each drive, unlike Windows. It seemed to get both drives to the same exact numbers, then just as quickly made J: have 20GB less than R:. I really do not like the UI of this app. Too hard to figure out how to do a comparison.

I've had FreeFileSync working on comparing them for the last 9 hours and probably the next day and a half as well, but at least it's doing something.
 
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Found a nice icon theme for Linux Mint, really easy on the eyes and just looks great. :mallory::techman:
https://community.linuxmint.com/software/view/papirus-icon-theme
Papyrus is a great icon set. It's got that nice, minimal look, the flat icon style, and lots of color that pops. I run Fedora, but I use Taru Breeze, which is the Ubuntu icon set but designed around the Breeze theme for the KDE desktop. It's got softer lines, less flat and more classic design, and soft gradients.
 
*irate grampa* Everything was flat in the old days! Even the Earth itself! *shakes cane* :mad:

One of my machines is a real drama queen when the CMOS battery is empty, it will boot, then shut down, boot up again and show a big flashy manufacturer screen and then just demand that you set time, date and all BIOS options, oh and don't set the DRAM frequency too high else it will beep at you, shut down, boot up and keep beeping until you clear the BIOS again and have to start all over.. :cardie: it has an old BIOS and will not go above 533Mhz for the RAM..
It's the only socket 775 machine I have, got one new old stock board in storage and an old board also in storage Both ASrock boards, the one currently in use is a Foxconn 945GZ7MC-KS2H which at least has new capacitors...
 
Funny you mention that @Santaman I have an old but still working Compaq CQ61 which is a heavy laptop with big battery that clips on the back and optical drive. It still works but also does that when it boots demanding that the time be set but oddly I did replace the button battery in the back that keeps the clock alive but it still seems to forget sometimes. The main battery has long since died. Also the CPU is in a socket and can be changed, it's under the top side under the keyboard section. But being over 10 years old I'm not even sure you can still buy parts for this or if it is even worth the hassle.
 
Some brands of CR-2032 don't work well with computers, some are also specifically made to be used in watches so yours could be a tad on the weak side, in most computers that are run regulary they last about 4-5 years.

As for parts and upgrades, yes they still can be available but usually these are really expensive and there's no use in updating such an old machine.
The old ones I keep around have usually reverted to the period correct OS so some oldies are on Windows 7 again, some on Windows 8.1 and with the really old ones XP, Win2K, 98SE and Windows 95 so they run at acceptable speeds.
 
Some brands of CR-2032 don't work well with computers, some are also specifically made to be used in watches so yours could be a tad on the weak side, in most computers that are run regulary they last about 4-5 years.

As for parts and upgrades, yes they still can be available but usually these are really expensive and there's no use in updating such an old machine.
The old ones I keep around have usually reverted to the period correct OS so some oldies are on Windows 7 again, some on Windows 8.1 and with the really old ones XP, Win2K, 98SE and Windows 95 so they run at acceptable speeds.

This was a Windows 7 machine, I still have a disk of that somewhere. I might just chuck in an SSD and new button cell and see what happens next, should be a little faster with an SSD
 
This was a Windows 7 machine, I still have a disk of that somewhere. I might just chuck in an SSD and new button cell and see what happens next, should be a little faster with an SSD
Windows 7 will **FLY** on an SSD. It will be almost instantaneous for everything.

Sincerely, someone who tried it and thought it was awesome.
 
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