Category: Geeks r Us
In ntfs one is allowed to create clusters as small as 512 and as large as 8096.
1. For a hard drive dedicated only for programs, which size would serve best for maximum efficiency and speed? Would one go towards the low end of the spectrum or the higher?
2. Likewise, for a drive that is dedicated just for storage like mp3, avi, etc. What size cluster is recommended to maximize the storage space?
I'm not too concerned with fragmentations as ntfs does a much better job at holding data together opposing to fat16 or 32.
Thanks
Files on a hard drive or generally any disk are stored on tracks, which are in a real image concentric circles. Clusters for the hard drive are a crytical thing to set. For installing progams and files the diference in cluster size really does not matter as what clusters really do is hold parts of data, so for example if my cluster size is 4kb and i have a file that is 9 kb, the storage space for it would be allocated to take up to three clusters (and 3 kb are still left on the third cluster). Fragmentation occurs when files are moved, modified or deleted often. There are trhee types of fragmentation but this really doesn't concern the cluster topic. For programs I recommend you use a hard drive that is effective at speed. Although for storage, I would never use a hard drive, mainly because it really wouldn't secure your files as well and plus, dvd packages are much cheaper and you can still get a good amount of room for storage. Not much to tell you wether it would be good or not to mess with the cluster size as logically, the bigger the cluster size the less fragmentation but room would not have its full or most potential availability, (a cluster that is 15 kb in size and a file that is 16 kb would really signify a loss of 14 kb). Therefore, i would leave my cluster size at four and just get a good 80 gb hard drive (if you are using winblows that is).