yuppy: just choose a different label, or create a new one sparse files does NOT allocate or reserve extra space. In fact, it writes data out of order. it's nothing more than a flag set in the MFT to save space. The "size" will still show the full size, but if you view the properties, it will show size on disk as a much MUCH smaller value. It's also for NTFS only. partfile creates a partfile in the same folder as the other data which stores bits of files you skipped but are still required. It gets removed if/when you remove the torrent data. compact allocation does not keep writes contiguous, it also stores data out of order, but not quite as efficiently as sparse files. It stores it in a python-like manner (very weird). it works on FAT32 though. In all cases, you would get small bits of other files if you turn off partfile. You should be using the BETA if you're using compact allocation because it's broken in 1.3, and try to NOT use it with the partfile.