persianpower Posted January 31, 2005 Report Share Posted January 31, 2005 hey whats a good HDD cluster size?I have 2 HDDHARDrive C is a 4kb cluster size-75 GB capacity-Maxtor model-unchached speed around 30-40 Mb/sec (which is good i think)-temperature of around 30-40CHARDdrive D is only 0.512kb (thats 512 bytes)-15GB capacity-also a maxtor model-uncached speed - around 15 MB/sec (much slower - used as a backup drive)So what is cluster size? whats the best size for each of the above HDD?I transfer a lot of files back and forth from these 2 drives, so speed is #1 on my mind :)thanksp.s.i run XP PRO SP2dual P4 2.8Ghz intel MMX processer with 200Mhz clock speed512 ram (495 physical) spec. 2 DIMM @ 256 each - RAM module is 1024MBIntel system board D865GBFIntel gaphics controllerCD-ROMdual CD-RW/DVD-RWdual HDD (both maxtor models)ACPI Multiprocessoer PC (what does this means exactly?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted January 31, 2005 Report Share Posted January 31, 2005 Basically, the larger the cluster size, the better the performance. And the smaller the cluster size, the greater - correction: lesser - the waste.So if you have a large disk with lots of free space, a larger cluster size may be better for you. It depends a bit on the number of files and the average size of your files.I wonder if there's a program out there that can analyze your disk and make suggestions according its contents? (I have PartitionMagic installed, which can analyze disk contents and showing the waste percentage).P.S. do a Google search; there are many articles on the subject on the Internet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted January 31, 2005 Report Share Posted January 31, 2005 4096bytes (=4KB) is the default cluster size in WXP. Do not change this unless you have good reasons to do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted February 1, 2005 Report Share Posted February 1, 2005 4096bytes (=4KB) is the default cluster size in WXP. Do not change this unless you have good reasons to do so.The default cluster size on XP depends on how the partition was created. FORMAT uses a default of max. 4KB, depending on the partition size:Drive size (logical volume)|Cluster size|Sectors 512 MB or less ........... |512 bytes ....... |1 513 MB - 1,024 MB (1 GB) . |1,024 bytes (1 KB)|21,025 MB - 2,048 MB (2 GB) |2,048 bytes (2 KB)|42,049 MB and larger ...... |4,096 bytes (4 KB)|8If the NTFS partition was built with the CONVERT utility, then the cluster size is always 512 bytes.When is it useful to change the cluster size? I have two partitions where I have changed the default cluster size:I have a partition that keeps only one very large PST file. Naturally I have created that partition with the maximum cluster size.I have another large partition that is used only by an automated backup utility. I has a very large number of compressed files, and size is essential. Performance is not. So I use the minimum cluster size for that partition, as I want to mimimize the waste.All other partitions I left with their default cluster size.P.S. NTFS compression is not supported for clusters > 4KB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb Posted February 2, 2005 Report Share Posted February 2, 2005 If the NTFS partition was built with the CONVERT utility, then the cluster size is always 512 bytes.That's what the Microsoft website says. But I just converted an old FAT32 partition, and the resulting NTFS has a cluster size of 4KB. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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