The Data Parking window

The Data Parking window is the main day-to-day surface. It's a two-pane file browser sized to feel like Finder, with extras that only make sense when you're working with paired drives.

Layout

• Left pane: internal SSD side of the active pair.
• Right pane: external fast drive side of the active pair.
• Middle column: action arrows — Move (→ / ←), Merge (with

conflict policy), and Relocate (move + shortcut).

Folder sizes

Every row shows what it actually holds. For a folder that means everything inside it, at every depth — measured as the room it takes up on disk, which is the same as the room you get back by moving it. The number in the list is the number you're deciding on.

• Sizes fill in as they're worked out. Measuring a large folder means

reading through all of it, so Storage Studio does it quietly in the background at a pace that leaves your own work untouched. Rows fill in from the top, and a folder still being counted shows a spinner — never "0 bytes", because an uncounted folder must never look like an empty one just before you move it.

• A "≥" in front of a size means part of that folder couldn't be

read, so the figure is a minimum rather than a total.

• A dash instead of a size appears for folders in a cloud account.

Getting a real total there would mean a long series of requests to the provider for every row on screen, so Storage Studio doesn't pretend to a number it hasn't got.

• Hidden files are included — they take up real space and they move

with the folder.

• The selection total adds up only what's been measured, and says how

many folders are still outstanding instead of under-reporting.

Refresh re-measures a folder from scratch, for when something deep inside it has grown.

Sorting

Sort either pane by Name, Size, Date modified, or Date created. Picking the key you're already on flips the direction. Folders group above files whichever key you choose, and anything whose size or date isn't known yet sorts to the end in both directions — unknown isn't the same as small, or as very old. Your choice is remembered.

Mirror-hover

When a pair is active, hovering or selecting an item in either pane auto-scrolls the other pane to the matching relative path. This lets you "see both sides" of any file without breaking your focus.

Side-specific Home

Each pane has its own Home button that returns to the pair root. A center Home both button does both at once. When unpaired, Home goes to your user folder.

Pair-relative paths

Drilling into a subfolder is "pair-relative" — the destination side mirrors your depth automatically. A move from your Documents/Work/Q3/Renders folder lands in the matching subfolder on your fast drive, at the same relative depth — not back at the pair root.

Actions

• Move — physical move + delete source. Confirms if the

destination exists.

• Merge — copy files into an existing destination folder. The

policy sheet asks Merge (default) vs. Override.

• Relocate — move the file then leave a shortcut at the source.

Apps and scripts that reference the old path keep working.

Loop detection prevents the app from copying a file onto its own shortcut.