[spiznet]

Well, I just called up Apple tech and asked about a situation where I have a folder on one drive that's 750MB and when I copy it to another drive it becomes 820MB.

All of the other folders I've copied to the same drive stay exactly the same size, so it doesn't seem to be a blocksize issue.

OSX doesn't have a Get Info that tells you how many files are in a folder (like OS9 did), just # of bytes.

Am I going to have to look through these hundred's of files manually?

No Labels
No Get Info # of files
No printing of a Folder/Window list
Erratic copying behavior...

Aghh..

[wataru]

Originally posted by spiznet:
All of the other folders I've copied to the same drive stay exactly the same size, so it doesn't seem to be a blocksize issue.

Well do you know if the other folders contained many small files or fewer larger files? That would be the key to seeing size differences as a consequence of block size.

[snerdini]

1. Check out Labels X from Unsanity
2. View Options -> Show Item Info
3. Print Window (versiontracker.com)
4. Haven't experienced this, sorry... but copying items (especially multiple copies) is much, much faster in OS X.

[spiznet]

Originally posted by snerdini:
1. Check out Labels X from Unsanity

OK

2. View Options -> Show Item Info

Still only shows bytes, not # of files

3. Print Window (versiontracker.com)

OK

4. Haven't experienced this, sorry... but copying items (especially multiple copies) is much, much faster in OS X.

This is true, but if its not reliable... the Apple tech finally told me to go back to OS9 and look at the folders to try to figure out what was going on with them...

[Jasoco]

I've always noticed this. Files seem to bloat up when placed on another HD. Or they actually shrink.

I always blamed the FileSystem.

[snerdini]

<snip>
2. View Options -> Show Item Info

Still only shows bytes, not # of files
</snip>

Uhhh....

[spiznet]

Originally posted by Jasoco:
I've always noticed this. Files seem to bloat up when placed on another HD. Or they actually shrink.

I always blamed the FileSystem.

Yes, this is a normal thing when dealing with 2 drives of differing block sizes. A file containing 1.5K of data will show up as a 2K or 4K file depending on the blocksize that the drive is using.

However, this is not my issue. The block sizes of the 2 drives are the same, since 5 other folders copied identically.

On further checking, it turns out that the folder info was inaccurate on the first drive. When I make a duplicate to the same drive, it shows up at the larger size, too...

Anybody know a way to force a recalculate of folder size in OSX? This one just got stuck.

[spiznet]

Originally posted by snerdini:
<snip>
2. View Options -> Show Item Info

Still only shows bytes, not # of files
</snip>

Uhhh....

Number of Files <> Number of Items

I've got 800 files in 3 folders, and Show Item info tells me 3 items. How is that helpful?

[snerdini]

Originally posted by spiznet:
Number of Files <> Number of Items

I've got 800 files in 3 folders, and Show Item info tells me 3 items. How is that helpful?

Open that folder to reveal those 3 folders, and you should be able to see the items in those folders. Just tryin' to help, man.

All I can say is that if you aren't happy with OS X, send feedback.

[spiznet]

Originally posted by snerdini:
Open that folder to reveal those 3 folders, and you should be able to see the items in those folders. Just tryin' to help, man.

All I can say is that if you aren't happy with OS X, send feedback.

Sorry, but just not feasible to do this with a complex series of folders and files. Noone has the time to track every little folder/file. I just want a number (of files), in case one or two are missing!!!

More details on this problem-

I had, earlier in the day, tried to copy this folder to another Volume. OSX said I didn't have permission to copy all the files.

Since its Mac OSX server, I went into SERVER ADMIN's Share privileges and copied the containing Volume's privileges to all files. (Somehow, files get onto the servers every once in a while with the wrong permissions.)

I was then able to copy the folder, but I realized that the original folder showed up as smaller than the copied folder!

My first idea was to check the number of files in each folder, which I soon realized that OSX could not do. Hence my initial post.

SO, this may be the cause of the discrepancy:

Is there a relationship between the calculated folder size and files within it that have a permissions issue?? Does Get Info/Show Info add these files into its total byte count?