Ext4 vs NTFS and Dolphin vs Nemo

Partition size (raw) 751,165,243,392
Ext4 NTFS
Partition size 700,650,766,336 751,074,746,368
FS / Raw partition 93.28% 99.99%
In Dolphin File Manager In Nemo File Manager In Dolphin File Manager In Nemo File Manager
Folders with files 288,737,128,584 288,737,112,200 288,737,067,216 288,737,066,160
Files only 288,737,063,048 288,737,063,048 288,737,063,048 288,737,063,048
Folder - Files 65,536 49,152 4,168 3,112
Actual space NA 411,913,494,528 NA 462,337,597,440
Expected space 411,913,654,136 462,337,680,208
Actual - Expected -159,608 -82,768

Hi all.

Out of curiosity, I dedicated a 750G partition to do a little test.

The raw partition has 751,165,243,392 byte.

1st, I partitioned it into NTFS, and 751,074,746,368 byte was available.
I then transferred some folders and files into the partition.

Now, Dolphin reported:
288,737,063,048 bytes of files
288,737,067,216 bytes of files with folders

But, Nemo reported:
288,737,063,048 bytes of files
288,737,066,160 bytes of files with folders

So, there is a discrepancy of 1,056 byte between the 2 file managers.

Subsequently, I re-formatted the partition, and made it Ext4 this time.
700,650,766,336 byte was available in Ext4.
Again, I transferred same folders and files into the Ext4 partition.

Now, Dolphin reported:
288,737,063,048 bytes of files
288,737,128,584 bytes of files with folders

But, Nemo reported:
288,737,063,048 bytes of files
288,737,112,200 bytes of files with folders

The discrepancy is now 16,384 byte.

Does anyone have an explanation:

  1. Why Dolphin and Nemo would report the size of folders (with files) differently, even though within same FS type?
  2. Why the expected free space (Partition size - folders with files) and actual space reported, also differ? I was expecting the journaling to use the 50GB reserved, and not from the 700GB available.

Any other discussions and thoughts are welcomed!

PS: Forum disallows me to attach screenshot, so I have to C&P the table into the content.

Each File manager creates and maintains many hidden settings/config/cache files through out the file system, It could be Dolphin is using more cache when it is running. So without knowing what each is doing under the hood this test is inconclusive and dare I say irrelevant. Use the df command instead.

Not sure if there was any conclusion in this test, or relevant to what.
I’m curious about the “hidden settings/config/cache files” which you mentioned.
Such “hidden settings/config/cache files”, I would expect it to be in some hidden part of the FS, and not within my data folders, dun you think so?
If it is present in my data folder, then theoretically every time I copy to another partition, the folder size would increase.
But that is of course not the case.

Are you really chasing a 0.016384 megabytes discrepancy ?
Do you have a symlink or more among your data? Their size is between 4 KiB and 35 KiB.

Have a read here

I think the root issue here, is why 2 FMs report the file/folder size differently.
And no, the data consist of less than 10 files in respective folders - no symlink.