Increase File Size: A Guy I Knew

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the concept of increasing the reported size of a file without actually increasing the physical space it occupies on disk. Participants explore various methods and implications of this idea, including technical details related to different file systems.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant inquires about methods to increase a file's size attribute without increasing its disk space usage.
  • Another suggests that compression could be a method, proposing that a file could be compressed to a smaller size while its attribute is increased.
  • A participant describes a scenario where a 200KB file is reported as 2MB, emphasizing that it still occupies only 200KB on disk.
  • There is a question about whether the original file might have been 2000KB instead of 200KB, leading to a suggestion of sparse files or compression tricks as potential solutions.
  • Discussion includes the NTFS file system's ability to compress files in real-time, which may affect how file sizes are reported.
  • Another participant mentions that on FAT file systems, modifying the directory table entry for file size could allow for reporting a different size than the actual size, but notes this cannot be done at the OS level.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants express various methods and theories regarding file size manipulation, but there is no consensus on a single approach or solution. Multiple competing views and methods remain under discussion.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference specific file systems (NTFS and FAT) and their characteristics, indicating that the methods discussed may depend on the file system in use. There is uncertainty regarding the applicability of these methods across different systems.

anahata
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Anyone know how to increase the size of a file, without actually increasing the space occupied on disk. I knew a guy who did this.
 
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anahata said:
Anyone know how to increase the size of a file, without actually increasing the space occupied on disk. I knew a guy who did this.
Compression?

If you started with a 100K file, you could compress it (say, using zip) to, say, 1/10th its uncompressed size. This means you could increase the original file to 1M, then compress it so that it still took up only 100K on disk.
 
What it comes to be like this,
say the file size is 200kb, he somehow made the file size attribute ,say 2MB without changing the space on disk, ie, it still costs just 200kb disk space, but for all other purposes it acts like a 2MB file.
For example, wen uploading the file etc, it the properties will be displayed as 2MB.
 
anahata said:
say the file size is 200kb, he somehow made the file size attribute ,say 2MB
Um, are you sure it wasn't a 2000kb file (which is a 2MB file?)

Google says the answer is to either create sparse files or do a compression trick.
 
anahata said:
What it comes to be like this,
say the file size is 200kb, he somehow made the file size attribute ,say 2MB without changing the space on disk, ie, it still costs just 200kb disk space, but for all other purposes it acts like a 2MB file.
For example, wen uploading the file etc, it the properties will be displayed as 2MB.

It happens in NTFS file system (not sure if this feature is available a Linux file system...need to check that out). It has a feature to compress the files in real time demoting it's already demoted performance in some systems.

Cause of this the "size of file" and "size of file on disk" are different.

But your friend did something opposite. I think this might be possible by tampering the default MFT.
 
No idea about NTFS, but on FAT each file is described by an entry in directory table - one of the fields there is the file size. Modify just these four bytes and file will be reported as larger (or smaller) then it is in reality. It can't be done on the OS level, but any disk editing software able to deal with the disk on the sector level will do.
 

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