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File size is a measure of how much data a computer file contains or how much storage space it is allocated. Typically, file size is expressed in units based on byte . A large value is often expressed with a metric prefix (as in megabyte and gigabyte ) or a binary prefix (as in mebibyte and gibibyte ).
Most file systems are based on a block device, which is a level of abstraction for the hardware responsible for storing and retrieving specified blocks of data, though the block size in file systems may be a multiple of the physical block size. This leads to space inefficiency due to internal fragmentation, since file lengths are often not ...
A cluster is the smallest logical amount of disk space that can be allocated to hold a file. Storing small files on a filesystem with large clusters will therefore waste disk space; such wasted disk space is called slack space. For cluster sizes which are small versus the average file size, the wasted space per file will be statistically about ...
Each entry in the FAT linked list is a fixed number of bits: 12, 16 or 32. The maximum size of a file or a disk drive that can be accessed is the product of the largest number that can be stored in the entries (less a few values reserved to indicate unallocated space or the end of a list) and the size of the disk cluster.
An empty file has a minimum disk size that depends on the disk block size, which can also be referred to as cluster size or IO block size, that depends in turn on the filesystem. This IO block size can be discovered through different utilities in the operating system, such as stat in Unix systems. [2] [3] Typically 4096 bytes.
Because the sectors have constant angular size, the 512 bytes in each sector are compressed more near the disk's center. A more space-efficient technique would be to increase the number of sectors per track toward the outer edge of the disk, from 18 to 30 for instance, thereby keeping nearly constant the amount of physical disk space used for ...
Beyond that, here are four totally doable ways to free up disk space on your computer, so you can go back to business (and browsing and shopping and streaming) as usual. Try System Mechanic for 30 ...
A piece of information can be handled by any computer or device whose storage space is large enough to accommodate the binary representation of the piece of information, or simply data. For example, the complete works of Shakespeare , about 1250 pages in print, can be stored in about five megabytes (40 million bits) with one byte per character.