[Ham-Computers] USB memory stick file space

[Philip, KO6BB]

Hi All,

I have a question about how memory sticks use/allocate memory.  Yesterday I 
bought a Memorex USB 2GB stick and loaded a couple directories that I wanted 
to load into another computer.

One directory (spoken Bible with background music) contains 1255 mp3 files, 
total size of 840MB, SIZE ON DISK 861MB.  OK, that's reasonable. Another 
folder, containing sheet music in text format consists of 1209 text files, 
total size of 1.75MB, SIZE ON DISK 37.7MB.  That seems like an excessive 
overhead!

I 'think' I know what's happening here, something to do with "sector size", 
it looks like a hard disk in "My Computer".  But the same 1209 files on my 
"D" drive only occupies 4.9 MB, roughly 1/7th of what it does on the memory 
stick.  Is it normal for USB memory sticks to waste storage space like this?

73 de Phil,  KO6BB
http://www.ko6bb.com
DX begins at the noise floor!
Ten Meter CW Beacon KO6BB/B, 20 Watts 24/7 on 28.248MCs.
Merced, Central California,    37.3N  120.48W  CM97sh