The space allocated to files is determined by the cluster size for the formatted partition. Cluster size is higly variable in FAT32/FAT16 file systms, but Windows 2K/XP using NTFS has clusters of 4096 bytes.
To compute the real space allocated to files you need: (FileSize/4096) rounded to the next higher integer x 4096, e.g.
FileSize 37352 bytes
FileSize/4096 = 9.11 rounded to 10
Space Allocated 40960 bytes (4096 x 10)
If the file is then compressed the real space allocation may be lower then native FileSize.
Source: *www.computing.net/windows2000/wwwboard/forum/64093.html