Strange behavior when pre-allocating files

[DominicanZero]

Hey there. I know I haven't posted much here, but that's precisely because I've found this little client to be the most awesome thing since sliced bread... Except for one little detail on the latest version.

When I get my torrents, I like to pre-allocate all files so I know, realistically, the amount of space I REALLY have available. However, ever since I've been using v1.8, for some reason this isn't working right.

The proof is this:

As you can see, theoretically I should have 26GB of queued stuff, and yet the OS reports a mere 12-something GB of actually used disk space. Why is this? The previous versions I remember using (1.6.x and 1.7.x) actually consumed the space they were using, so it's a bit strange for the latest version to behave like this.

My system is as follows:

The machine is an Acer Aspire 5670 notebook running on all default hardware, except a 160GB Toshiba 5400rpm hard drive instead of the default 120GB Seagate 5400rpm drive.

Help please?

[Firon]

in 1.8, sparse files is enabled by default and due to a bug, does not get overridden by pre-allocate. So turn off diskio.sparse_files or just update to 1.8.1.

[bgmnt]

I upgraded to 1.8 and I noticed this also. Is there any problems with turning diskio.sparse_files off? Is it better for the hard drive if you don't pre-allocate?

[DominicanZero]

Firon, thanks for your input -- the problem is appropriately solved now, turning sparse_files off did the trick. =D

Thanks again.

[tauruserz]

Thanks Firon. I'm also wondering with this pre-allocating thing.