Database size - fresh DB vs converted DB

[Ferdinand]

As part of my efforts to resolve that non-editable description field bug, I created a replacement production database starting from scratch.  This was meant to replace the one that I had converted from 3.6.  Same files, same categories, keywords, attributes, thesaurus, etc.  The converted DB was 4.83Gb, the one started from scratch was 5.35Gb, or a little over 10% larger.

I was initially a little surprised by this, as I thought that they'd be reasonably close.  I guess the difference is in the image thumbs which are in the DB, as I understand it.  So converting the 3.6 thumbs gives me a smaller DB than creating them from scratch.

Is this to be expected?

[Mario]

Did you run a compact on both. The size difference may be from pre-allocated "grow" space. I really don't test such things so I'm just guessing.

[Ferdinand]

I certainly did.

[Ferdinand]

The size difference may be from pre-allocated "grow" space.

Perhaps.  You'd know better than I.  I thought perhaps that V3.6 used more aggressive compression in creating the thumbs than V5, and the conversion just brings them across as is.  It's not a big deal.  I was just reporting an observation that took me by surprise.