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I have a question related to what I'm currently testing/working on/trying to understand.

I created a small text file with the following content

abc.txt

ABCDEF

Now when I view File Properties

enter image description here

I see the file's size is 6 Bytes (since there are 6 characters) & Size on disk is 4Kb.Fair enough. There must be some metadata associated with this file such as Type of File, Timestamps, Security Information etc.

Where is all this information stored ? Is it the MFT (I'm almost certain it is) ? If so, Can I in any possible way find out how much space is consumed by the metadata for this file ?

Dhiwakar Ravikumar
  • 2,239

1 Answers1

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That is not the case. Your file has an absolute size of 6 bytes. The file system you are using, however, has a block size of 4KB, meaning the partition is segmented in 4KB blocks and your file, while having only 6 bytes, has to be written on a 4KB block, thus "Size on disk".

All the files in your system will have a minimum "size on disk" of 4KB due to this, even if they are actually smaller and all of your files will have a "size on disk" that is multiple of 4KB (4096 bytes).

The metadata size you referred will not appear there at all, even if it's stored with the file at the file system level.

Ryakna
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