Re: Cluster Size versus Performance

It's another one of those "Debatable" settings. I wouldn't want
someone to just arbitrarily change their cluster size and end up
damaging the partition or loose any data.
I use large clusters on my dedicated Music partition and that
Maxtor external, but everything else is the standard 4KByte size.
It does generally increase performance (File access & defrag)
but it's not for every situation or disk setup. If you do change or
experiment, post back your results/conclusions.

"Gerry Cornell" <gcjc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:u8VenTi3FHA.3540@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Thanks for posting the link.
>
> Guess it might be the time for some experimentation <g>.
>
> --
>
>
> Regards.
>
> Gerry
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> FCA
>
> Stourport, Worcs, England
> Enquire, plan and execute.
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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>
> "R. McCarty" <PcEngWork-NoSpam_@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:%23ENM4Ch3FHA.3900@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> While I wouldn't globally advocate changing from the default
>> 4KByte cluster size, there are cases where it has it's advantages.
>>
>> Read the following from NTFS.Com and note the comment from
>> the site...
>> http://www.ntfs.com/ntfs_optimization.htm
>>
>> ""The bigger the cluster size, the more disk space is wasted,
>> however, the performance is better.""
>>
>> HOWEVER - You should not change the XP partition from 4K
>> or you'll loose the ability for compression and SP2 based XP
>> instances will NOT boot from a Non 4KByte cluster size. It's
>> not by design, but a flaw in the parsing of attributes that span file
>> records. At boot you'll likely see an I/O failure, if the Cluster size
>> has been changed from 4KBytes
>>
>


.

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