Hard Drive Cluster Size

[Guest_imported]

if i reduce the cluster size on my hard drive from 32k to 16k i will get more space, but will my hard drive be slower, faster or be just as fast? thx

 

[cdogg]

I'm not sure if cluster size directly affects how fast the hard drive can read them because you'll have more clusters, but it will give you more space. It will definitely NOT make your system slower.

Think about all the 1k and 2k files on your HD. Each one is taking up 32k of space. May not sound like a whole lot, but when you consider that you have thousands of files that size, you could easily free up MB of space.

~cdogg

 

[cdogg]

Oh and by the way...

FAT32 takes the cluster size down to 4k not 16k. Also, your operating system (Windows) must support it. You would need Win95B (OSR2) or later.

 

[hotfusion]

The cluster size varies with the partition size. I don't recall what they are, but the information is freely available. It would be something like 4K up to 8 gig, 8K up to 12 gig and so on.
If you are storing large files, a large cluster size would in theory be faster as the head has fewer reads to perform, but whether you would actually notice the difference.......
I partition my drives to give the smallest cluster size for more efficient use of space. My suggestions are what I would try myself. If incorrect, I welcome corrections to my rather limited knowledge. Andy.

 

[edfair]

Probably incrementally faster since the files will be closer to the front. But fragmentation will probably offset most of the gains.
Probably a more realistic goal is to create logical drives and segregate you data , programs , and OS. Ed Fair
unixstuff@juno.com
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