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I have an (advertised) 256gb SSD on my laptop, which shows up as 222gb on windows file explorer. Recently, I noticed that 50gb was just missing even though nothing could have been taking up that space. I analyzed the properties of all my files and found only ~115ish gigs used, meaning I should have another 100 left... but I only have 50.

So, I used windirstat to show me what was wrong, and it's telling me my disk is only 164gb, not 222. That seems to be why I have so much missing space.

Here's what my file explorer shows me

Here is what windirstat shows me

Why is Windirstat telling me my ssd is 60gb less than advertised? Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

bluesquare
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  • 1) Did you run windirstat as admin? 2) C-drive is not the full drive size as there is a hidden partition so see disk management – gregg Sep 20 '20 at 16:47
  • https://superuser.com/questions/917110/why-does-windirstat-report-less-space-used-than-windows-does – gregg Sep 20 '20 at 16:54
  • 1) Yep, I ran as administrator and it still showed the same amount. 2) I understand that C-drive isn't the full size, and that's why it would show up as 222gb instead of the 256 advertised. I'm saying that the C drive itself is larger on file explorer than on windirstat. Shouldn't it be the other way around? – bluesquare Sep 20 '20 at 17:06
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    Fairly certain that windirstat column shows *used* space, not total space. – Sam Forbis Sep 20 '20 at 18:28
  • Hard disk sizes are advertised in Gigabytes (GB), whereas many storage utilities including Windows Explorer will show Gibibytes (GiB). The terms are often used interchangeably. There's still a discrepancy after you account for that, but it's only about 10 GB. – Sam Forbis Sep 20 '20 at 18:33
  • Wow I'm an idiot. Thanks for clarifying - I went ahead and answered the question with what you said. – bluesquare Sep 20 '20 at 18:43

2 Answers2

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Thank you Sam Forbis - the column that I'm looking at shows USED space, not TOTAL space. That makes so much more sense and also makes me feel like an idiot. Still keeping this question up in case it is confusing to anybody else too.

bluesquare
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Uniquely in computing hard drive manufacturers uses decimal sizes. So 256 GB = 256 x 1000 x 1000 x 1000. Everyone else in computing uses binary based sizes. So 256 GB = 256 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024.

When windows was first written there were no SI units for binary. SI units have now been added but windows still uses the decimal units' name for the new binary units.

They are known as ki bytes, Mi bytes, and Gi bytes.

1 ki = 2 ^ 10 = 1024

1 Mi = 2 ^ 20 = 1,048,576

1 Gi = 2 ^ 30 = 1,073,741,824

Therefore a 256 GB hard drive will show a disk size in Windows of 238 GB (before partitioning).

256,000,000,000 bytes / 1073741824 = 238.4185791015625 GB.

user1221206
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