# Help with Seagate external storage drive **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 26, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448 "2011-12-26T18:55:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2011, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/21 "2011-12-27T22:01:59Z")
> [@Musicat](#): > > It’s not the empty ones we are concerned about, but the ones that are large, but have no reason to be. Find the biggest user of your space, then examine why. > > I just checked my own system and I have a utility (from [download.com](http://download.com), I think) that is called “folder size.” Running it allows me to see which folders are using how much space. Can you find that program and run it? > > [Folder Size Explorer for Windows 11, 10, 8, 7 - Free Disk Analyzer](http://www.mindgems.com/products/Folder-Size/Folder-Size.html) > > (I just ran it, and 50% of my C: drive is in the “porn” directory. Wonder what that is?) 🙂 It shows a folder on the Seagate drive (E drive) called “Rebit” that contains 3657.8MB in a file called “data”. Pie chart shows this taking up half the drive, and my photos the other half. I’m betting that this is the culprit, but am mystified as to why this folder doesn’t show up when I look at the drive under “my computer”. Now the question is: do I delete this folder? I’ve copied the photo file back to my C drive, so the worst that could happen is that the external drive quits functioning. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2011, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/22 "2011-12-27T22:06:18Z")
Unfortunately, this still doesn’t add up to 1.8TB (by my math, anyway). ~4,000MB + ~4,000MB. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2011, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/23 "2011-12-27T22:23:37Z")
For how long have you been doing backups? IIRC backups will accumulate until there is no more space. And are you doing Full, Incremental, or Differential backups? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2011, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/24 "2011-12-27T22:39:57Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > For how long have you been doing backups? IIRC backups will accumulate until there is no more space. > > And are you doing Full, Incremental, or Differential backups? Since I bought the drive. I know that the backups are what is taking up all the room; it’s finding the file they are stored in that’s causing all the problems. ---
**Author:** ![JSexton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@JSexton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JSexton)\ **Post date:** [December 27, 2011, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/25 "2011-12-27T23:35:45Z")
Rebit is backup software that probably shipped on the Seagate drive. Look under your program files on your C: drive for a folder called Rebit, and see if you can open it up. My guess is that you can open a configuration page in the Rebit software and control how many backups it runs, how often they run, how long it stores them, and so on. What’s probably happening is that Rebit is storing them in some hidden file structure that you can only access cleanly through their management software, and adjusting those settings can get rid of unneeded files. Actually, if you can report back in here with that the settings are, we can help fine tune them. Screen shots would be best. Press alt-printscreen, then open Paint and hit ctrl-V to paste. Save that file, and upload it to photobucket or picasa or some other photo-sharing website. (Not facebook, because we aren’t your facebook friends). ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/26 "2011-12-28T00:38:40Z")
No ‘rebit’ file on my C drive that I can find. There are 10 files that look something like: 40b835af7b947c7ef9. Some have subfiles called MRT. This is all so tiresome. I’ll see what I can do with the screenshot later. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/27 "2011-12-28T00:58:04Z")
This might help (but probably won’t). MRT files might be Malicious Software Removal Tool, although I don’t know why they would be so big: > **[Remove specific prevalent malware with Windows Malicious Software Removal...](https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/remove-specific-prevalent-malware-with-windows-malicious-software-removal-tool-kb890830-ba51b71f-39cd-cdec-73eb-61979b0661e0)** > > Discusses the release of the Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) to help remove specific prevalent malicious software from Windows-based computers. ---
**Author:** ![HumanMonkeyGod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c67d28/32.png) [@HumanMonkeyGod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumanMonkeyGod)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 10:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/28 "2011-12-28T10:09:23Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > If you tell me how. ☹ > > Oh, and it wasn’t the AVG folder. Get your directory listing ready in Explorer and press the “print screen” button on your keyboard. Open MS Paint, go to Edit on the menu bar and paste (it might ask to resize canvas, select yes). You should be able to then save the image as .png or .jpg and upload it to a filesharing site so we can look at it. Might be worth running a disk check on that drive as well (right-click on the drive, Properties, select the Tools tab and then click Check now (select both options if they are not ticked when they come up before starting). ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/29 "2011-12-28T15:18:50Z")
I may have figured out what the problem is, although it seems weird to me. As I mentioned, I moved my photo folder to this drive, which takes up quite a bit of space. According to the information I found about how the Seagate backup program works, when the drive becomes 80% full, the program deletes older backups on its own to create space for the new backup and to maintain the drive at 80% full. _If there is not enough space on the drive, the program will wait until data has been moved before performing this operation._ In other words, it doesn’t like my photo folder sitting there hogging space, and I need to find another means of storage for them. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![jz78817](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jz78817/32/1028_2.png) [@jz78817](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jz78817)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/30 "2011-12-28T15:44:37Z")
assuming your photo folder isn’t in your Pictures library, why not include the folder on the list of folders to be backed up by the Seagate software instead of doing it manually? ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/31 "2011-12-28T16:36:47Z")
> [@jz78817](#): > > assuming your photo folder isn’t in your Pictures library, why not include the folder on the list of folders to be backed up by the Seagate software instead of doing it manually? It’s already part of the backup, but I was trying to keep ready access to the photos someplace other than on my laptop hard drive in order to save space and improve computer speed. So basically, the photos exist in both the backup files and in a separate, readily accessible folder on the same external drive. I think I need to buy a bigger USB hub and a drive just for photo storage. ETA: Thanks to all of you who patiently tried to help me out on this. Sometimes one just has a brain fart that doesn’t allow him to see the problem clearly. ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/32 "2011-12-28T17:58:57Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > It’s already part of the backup, but I was trying to keep ready access to the photos someplace other than on my laptop hard drive in order to save space and improve computer speed. So basically, the photos exist in both the backup files and in a separate, readily accessible folder on the same external drive. I think I need to buy a bigger USB hub and a drive just for photo storage. Instead of running the backup software why not just use [rsync](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync) to mirror the contents? When you do subsequent mirrors, it won’t bother copying files that have already been copied (hence the ‘sync’ part) but the files on the external hard drive will be perfectly accessible. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/33 "2011-12-28T18:15:57Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > Instead of running the backup software why not just use [rsync](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rsync) to mirror the contents? When you do subsequent mirrors, it won’t bother copying files that have already been copied (hence the ‘sync’ part) but the files on the external hard drive will be perfectly accessible. I understood the words in that article such as “and, for, it”, etc. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![standingwave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9de0a6/32.png) [@standingwave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/standingwave)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/34 "2011-12-28T20:58:00Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I understood the words in that article such as “and, for, it”, etc. 😉 There’s also [Grsync](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grsync) if you want a graphical interface. It’s free, open-source and it’s been around for about fifteen years. [Here it is for Windows](http://grsync-win.sourceforge.net/). Probably not any more complicated than the software that came with your external drive. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [December 28, 2011, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448/35 "2011-12-28T20:59:05Z")
> [@standingwave](#): > > There’s also [Grsync](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grsync) if you want a graphical interface. It’s free, open-source and it’s been around for about fifteen years. [Here it is for Windows](http://grsync-win.sourceforge.net/). Probably not any more complicated than the software that came with your external drive. Thanks for the links. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-with-seagate-external-storage-drive/607448.md?page=1)