Formatting hdd with different byte size?

alucardxva · Jan 25, 2014

Have a gaming rig an just installed a ssd to run my os win 7. Since I switched I figure I would formate my 1T hdd an use it for media an larger games. Buy was wandering if I formate it with the largest byte size if it would increase the speed of my game. At least if I would see a noticeable difference. In load times? Maybe frame rate.

Rig- A-Z formula am3+ Fx 8350 16g ram 1800hz 7950 sapphire gpu. 1T WD. 120 ssd

Phillip Corcoran · Jan 25, 2014

Bytes per sector, whether 4KB or 512KB, will no make no difference to the drive's performance and therefore no difference to applications or games which run from it. The smaller byte size per sector simply reduces the amount of wasted drive capacity compared to the old 512KB per sector.

You may wish to read this: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/4k-sector_size-advanced_format,review-32012.html

fzabkar · Jan 25, 2014

"Byte size" = 8 bits.

If you mean sector size, then how would you propose to change this, assuming it made any difference?

popatim · Jan 25, 2014

I'll assume you are referring to the formatting 'Cluster Size' selection since you really have no control over the size of a byte or the hard drives actual sectors size <grin>

Windows will default to 4k clusters until you hit 16tb volumes. Unless you see alot of your games' files smaller than 4k then you will want to run at least 4k clusters. If your games' files are all at least 1mb then 16k, 32k , or even 64k should increase performance some.

edit - just be aware that larger clusters waste more space. a 16.001kb file on a 16k cluster drive will use two clusters and waste 15.999k of space. The same file on a 4k cluster drive would only waste 3.999k space

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Formatting hdd with different byte size?

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