NTFS cluster size

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

Partition Magic 8.0 has the capability to change cluster sizes.
http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/se [...] fault.aspx

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"sealpup" wrote:

| On installing XP over 98 I converted from FAT32 to NTFS.
|
| Unfortunately I now have 512 byte cluster size, which according to most
| people should be 4K. I should say that the part of the micorsoft website
| where I was advised to use "convert" made no mention of potential cluster
| size problems.
|
| Anyway. Is there any way round this other than reformatiing the disk, which
| abviously means reinstalling everything I have (which I don't fancy much)?
|
| Thanks.

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.perform_maintain (More info?)

On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 08:11:01 -0800, "Hal R"

>512 clusters instead of 4K is NOT a problem, and should
>be considered a benefit. The benefit is that hard drive
>space is used more efficiently and, therefore, all else
>being equal you should have more "free space". The only
>downside to 512 is that you will likely have more
>fragmentation, however, that too could be easily resolved
>by simply defragmenting more often.

In practice, folks find this a major performance drawback.

There's a bit more to optimal cluster size than how much free HD space
you get back. It amuses me to see the same ppl waving this around
that also let IE consume 256M+ space for cache, per user account.

Any idea how long it will take to "simply" defragging one big 120G C:
that's held as a large number of 152-byte clusters?

How "often" would you like to have to to that, and how well do you
expect it to work? Gah.



>-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Hmmm... what was the *other* idea?
>-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -

^512Meg????!!!! if you had 512megs per cluster your operating system would take up a TB of space lol...i hope you meant 512k. And either way NTFS supports 64k max.

Anyway: To the OP: There are some apps like Partition Magic that can change cluster size. I highly recommend you do this because 512k clusters will result in very heavy file system fragmentation and will lower the performance of your file system also.

Oh I just realized, WHY ARE YOU THREAD NECROING!!! CMON, this thread is from 2005...

Necroing, or thread necromancy, is bumping a thread that hasn't been posted in for a long time. In this case, 4 years. Start a new thread rather than bumping something this old.