Perplexing file question

Posted by: Rich27 on 03 April 2011

In the week, one of the hard drives in my NAS failed, so I decided it was time to have an additional back up of my music files.

 

I have the main version of the files on the NAS, a back up on my Mac Mini and decided to make another copy onto a WD Passport portable hard drive just to be safe.

 

Now as I am a bit sad, I decided to check that the total folder size on the NAS, Mini and Passport were all the same!  The NAS and Mini are byte for byte identical sizes, but the newly created back up on the Passport is 4,096 bytes larger in size.  Now it hasn't escaped my attention that this is the exact size of your typical hard drive partition, so this probably isn't a coincidence.

 

I have narrowed the difference down to an individual album folder, and every time I try and copy it across to the Passport it generates a new copy 4,096 bytes larger.

 

Can anyone explain to me why this is happening or should I just get a life and a more healthy hobby?????

Posted on: 03 April 2011 by Mr Underhill

What OS are on the relevant boxes?

What format?

 

Assuming they are windows with FAT32 I'd be inclined to look at the cluster sizes.

 

M

 

PS If you want to prove that what has been backed up is identical do an MD5 checksum on the two files.

Posted on: 03 April 2011 by Rich27

Mini is on Snow Leopard, no idea what file format the NAS and Passport use but they have only ever been used on my iMac which is also on Snow Leopard.