Disk cluster size

[b1tchm4gn3t]

I have noticed that the harddrive that came with my computer had a cluster size of 4kb. My add on Maxtor has a cluster size of 1 kb. Will that effect my performance and if so...is there a way to change the cluster size to 4 kb? Thank you to all that respond.

[SaSi]

Cluster size is a parameter decided (by the user or the OS) during formating the drive.

The only sensible way to change the cluster size is the reformat the drive and specify the cluster size instead of leaving "automatic" selected.

Having said that, cluster size by itself won't affect performance - unless a very small cluster size is selected.

The actual issue with cluster size is that this is the amount of disk space allocated each time a file needs more space. Which means that with a 1K cluster size, a small 230 byte text file will occupy 1024 bytes (1K).

If you have a 4K cluster size, the same text file would occupy 4096 bytes.

In the (very very) old days of 20Mb hard disks, using a small cluster size allowed more data files to fit on the disk.

On a large, 100Gb disk that will be used for storing video files of 2~3 Gb each, a small cluster size is useless and it CAN hinder performance (the OS will call the "allocate cluster" function more often thus wasting time.

If you are going to use the disk for video editing, specify the largest cluster size available to the format utility. For general purpose, a 4K cluster size is typically a good choice.

[b1tchm4gn3t]

I was wrong in that the cluster size is 512 bytes and NOT 1 kb. Sorry for the misunderstanding. This drive is a video only drive and its about freed up, so in your oppinion, would you go ahead and make it 4 kb per cluster instead of the now 512 bytes?

[SaSi]

Sorry for the late response. Was out of town. If the disk is mainly for Video, why not make the cluster size even larger, say 16KB or even more. I am formating a new 400Gb volume with a 64KB cluster size myself.

[b1tchm4gn3t]

sounds good to me...now Im off to google the 'how to'. Thank you for the response

[VegasBud]

Partition Magic allows you to change the cluster size without reformatting, and without losing data. I have used it for that purpose, and it worked without any problems.