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Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: CP5670 on May 18, 2004, 04:32:16 pm

Title: Cluster sizes
Post by: CP5670 on May 18, 2004, 04:32:16 pm

I am planning to format my drive and upgrade to WinXP, and actually the only reason I have not already done so is that I can't find (yet) the copy of XP I had lying around. Anyway, what cluster size should I be using? This will be an NTFS formatted, single partition 160GB ATA133 unit containing windows and an "average" collection of games and other programs. It's hard to say anything more specific than that unless there is some way to easily find the average size per file/folder on what I have right now.

Title: Cluster sizes
Post by: Liberator on May 18, 2004, 05:57:58 pm

Well, a cluster is the minimum space on a drive a piece of data can occupy.  If the cluster size is 4kb, a 2kb piece of data will still occupy the whole 4 kb.

One thing, cluster size goes up with the size of the partition.  This site  (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/ntfs/archCluster-c.html) talks about NTFS clusters and provides a chart detailing the cluster size/partition size variance.

Obviously, you want as small a cluster as possible.


Also, I would break the drive up into at least two partitions, one 3-4GB for Windows and then the rest for Apps/Data.  Preferably, 3: Windows --- Applications --- Data.

Title: Cluster sizes
Post by: CP5670 on May 18, 2004, 10:07:08 pm

Thanks for the link. I know what a cluster is but wasn't sure what is considered a good balance between capacity (small clusters) and speed (large clusters). That site seems to indicate that 4096 byte clusters is optimal overall, so I will use that.

Title: Cluster sizes
Post by: übermetroid on May 18, 2004, 11:27:18 pm

Liberator, why do the partitions?  If it is all going to be NTFS what is gained?

Title: Cluster sizes
Post by: Thorn on May 19, 2004, 12:11:06 am

Access times. Fragmentation. Less headaches.

Title: Cluster sizes
Post by: Liberator on May 19, 2004, 01:24:35 am

You can format any of the partitions you like and not risk damaging valuable data.  I mean think about it, how much of your life is tied up various files on your hard drive?  Now think what would happen should they be lost.

Title: Cluster sizes
Post by: übermetroid on May 19, 2004, 09:49:53 am

oh........ Thats neat.  So I would have saved that lst 40 gigs of movies last time I installed WIN XP?  Cool!  I will do this on the next format!  4 gigs is enough for Windows, right?

Are the different partitions shown as differernt Disks or what?

Title: Cluster sizes
Post by: Thorn on May 19, 2004, 11:51:15 am

I'd go with 5 or 6.
Thats what I have for mine. It has 2 gigs free right now, but thats because I did some cleaning. It had less than 500mb at one point.