Hi Josh,
The loss in capacity you are noticing is a natural phenomenum of the way
FAT-based filesystems work. To break through all the technical and cut to
the conclusion, what you are seeing is the actual amount of storage that
is available to files once all of the information required for the
filesystem's operation and coordination has been stored on the device,
such as the names of the files (the directories), the file allocation
tables (FATs - two of them, one as a backup), the boot sector and other
bits and pieces. Don't be alarmed. You can format the device on your
Windows system and you will not damage it. It is benefitial to understand
the way these filesystems work, so that you can custom-format your card
(or anything else) in accordance with the way you mostly use it. However,
it does seem to be the case, generally, that using FAT (not FAT32) as the
filesystem choice should save the greatest space on filesystem data and
thus leave you more room for actual storage while being reasonably
practical. The price will be the amount of space wasted in unused parts
of each cluster (minimum storage allocation unit) and the number of files
that you can store in the root ("None", in KeySoft's annoying terminology)
directory. Since I want both of these problems avoided, I used FAT32,
which supports ridiculously low cluster sizes and some additional
information that isn't of real use to me but whose overhead is very high,
thus wasting, presently, about 7 mb of the disk.
Cheers,
Sabahattin
--
Thought for the day:
Book (n): a utensil used to pass time while waiting
for the TV repairman.
Sabahattin Gucukoglu
Phone: +44 20 88008915
Mobile: +44 7986 053399
http://www.sabahattin-gucukoglu.com/
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