The Energon Pub

So Microsoft has finally allowed people to save content to a non-Microsoft USB key ("finally" as in I think it happened in April 2010). Anyway, my problem is this:

I went and configured my USB key on my Xbox to limit the space to 4 GB of Xbox content, so I can make sure I can burn this stuff to a single DVD. Anyway, I put my stuff on the USB key, made a quick calculation, and figured it was around 4GB (1.2 GB plus 800 MB plus some 120 MB files here and there). And my USB key showed a difference of about 4 GB (I plugged it in and Xbox told me there was 16 GB of space, then when I was done there was about 12.1 GB). So I unplugged it, went to my PC, and plugged it in and... huh? There are now 5 GB of Xbox content on there. How is this?

For the uninitiated, Xbox doesn't save your content in individual files. It saves them in segments of 1 GB each, then a couple of files that are about 400 MB each and a single 1MB file. I guess one of these files is user information.

But what's this extra content? If I asked Xbox to keep it under 4GB and my quick calculations came up to 4 GB, why are these files suddenly 5 GB? There couldn't have been that much number rounding and my calculations couldn't have been that off. Is there a way around this? Is there some sort of Xbox file analyzing tool out there I can use to help reduce this file size or take out unneeded stuff?

I'm no computer expert, but maybe the XBox compresses the data on its own HD and expands it when the files are copied.

Or its got 1GB of walware\data protection.