40GB used space on temp only drive?



I bought this drive exclusively to use as a temp drive for plotting, and it has never been used as anything else. I have a folder under the root called “Plot Temp SN750” which I use for plotting. For some reason It is showing 40GB used, but properties show 0 folders and 0 files on the drive. Any Idea why? The chia client is not running currently, and to the best of my knowledge plotting has never been interrupted (aside from momentery loss of internet connection switching on my VPN) and the chia client has always been exited properly after plotting was finished. I’m on Windows 10 running a full node on the GUI, and the NVME is using a PCIe adapter card if it matters. Folder options are set to show hidden files and folders. Thanks.

I have had this happen on my temp NVME drives as well - no idea what is causing it. I have just been checking in on them occasionally to see if it has happened, then if it has killing a plot job to give the others enough to finish then formatting the drive when they finish and restarting the plot jobs again. Trimming does not help.

You have indexing on on that drive, and maybe journalling, trashcan etc.

The best way to check is typing “diskmgmt” on start menu
Deleting all (if there are hidden ones) the partitions until the drive becomes complete black.
Then, create new volume…
That way, you will get 100% space the disk has on it.

I did that the first time i noticed this, and for a while there was no used space on the drive when I wasn’t plotting. Now it’s back and it is exactly the same size as before, 40.1GB.

I’ll try turning off indexing to see if that helps.

Out of curiosity do you know what size it was? I’ve seen it do this twice and it has been 40.1 both times.

I have not noticed, but it feels like it was more than 40 (and my drives are 512s). I will pay attention next time it happens though and post

oh, and I have indexing turned off on my temp drives

At first, sorry for my english :expressionless: .
you may need to change the virtual memory value of this drive to “no swap file” in the system properties .

Yep could easily be a swap space

I’ve heard of a swap file, but I have no idea what it is. Thanks guys, I’ll look into what it is. That’s why I love projects like this, I get to learn about new things I normally wouldn’t have run accross.

Windows would not be putting a swap file on to a non-boot disk unless you specifically tell it to though. Also it would be called pagefile.sys and show up if you have hidden files shown. Right?

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Here are some screen shots from my drive doing it’s weird thing.

so, it shows that 43.2 GB are in use:

Screenshot 2021-06-05 150954

And as you can see indexing is turned off:

But there is nothing on the drive:

and hidden items are being shown:

And here is WinDirStat showing that there is nothing taking up any space on the disk:

So, no idea what is going on. I will format it, trim it, and put it right back to work though

Yes exactly the same as mine. You have had indexing off the whole time? And from my 10min. Google search it looks like you might be right, there should be no swap or page file on that drive, and it would show up as a hidden file anyway. I’m not concerned about the lost space, but I really want to know what is causing it.

Yes, indexing off the whole time. My main concern is that losing any space on the drive interferes with my ability to run two plots at a time on the drive - it’s very tight as it is. So far though reformatting the drive when I notice it has freed up the space and allowed me to go for another day or two without any issues.

I think the only way we’re going to figure out what’s taking up the space is to run something like windirstat on it. Unfortunately i reformatted mine so I’ll have to wait until it comes back to figure it out. It makes me nervous that something malicious is running in the background…
Edit: Didn’t notice that you already ran Windirstat… There has to be a way to figure out what’s eating up space.

A little additional info - after rebooting the computer (doing nothing else - did not format the drive or anything), the drive now shows that it is empty and there is no space being used on it. I am stumped.

If windirstat shows 465 available on your drive and none used then I wonder if it’s just Windows incorrectly reporting disk usage? Maybe the plotting process is confusing it somehow. If that is the case then the question is whether that full space is actually available to use or is the “used” space marked inaccessible for plotting?

This is what I thought too but I have had the case two or three times.