I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them, also
thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm watching
not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check properties, I
can see avg filesize is only 1mb. I do have a lot of larger folders there
too, but some of the older folders are copies of old CDs or previous pc
folders that have a lot of 1 kb files in there - bringing that " average"
down to 1mb. I just made a few partititons and on a 235 gb partition -
with 4kb clusters (default), it's already used 72mb in formatting and I
haven't "wasted" space with any of my stuff yet. So to not waste so much
space on the new drives for old/small stuff, I'm thinking of making a
portion formatted as 2kb sectors and then for the large files / obvious
backups etc ( 10mb/ 20 mb+ ? files) using ... say 64kb clusters. I've
been reading similiar questions via google, and don't want to start a
fight about what's "best",
http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18335.html
just asking for others that set it up with small/large clusters - was it
worth it ? Less waste ?

"- Bobb -" <bobb@noemail.123> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them, also
> thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
> partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
> during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm watching
> not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check properties, I
> can see avg filesize is only 1mb. I do have a lot of larger folders there
> too, but some of the older folders are copies of old CDs or previous pc
> folders that have a lot of 1 kb files in there - bringing that " average"
> down to 1mb. I just made a few partititons and on a 235 gb partition -
> with 4kb clusters (default), it's already used 72mb in formatting and I
> haven't "wasted" space with any of my stuff yet. So to not waste so much
> space on the new drives for old/small stuff, I'm thinking of making a
> portion formatted as 2kb sectors and then for the large files / obvious
> backups etc ( 10mb/ 20 mb+ ? files) using ... say 64kb clusters. I've
> been reading similiar questions via google, and don't want to start a
> fight about what's "best",
> http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18335.html
> just asking for others that set it up with small/large clusters - was it
> worth it ? Less waste ?


I don't have experience with 2kb vs 4kb clusters but 72MB on a 236GB drive
is .03% of the drive. What significant gain do you hope to achieve?

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

"- Bobb -" wrote
> I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them, also
> thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
> partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
> during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm watching
> not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check properties, I
> can see avg filesize is only 1mb. I do have a lot of larger folders there
> too, but some of the older folders are copies of old CDs or previous pc
> folders that have a lot of 1 kb files in there - bringing that " average"
> down to 1mb. I just made a few partititons and on a 235 gb partition -
> with 4kb clusters (default), it's already used 72mb in formatting and I
> haven't "wasted" space with any of my stuff yet. So to not waste so much
> space on the new drives for old/small stuff, I'm thinking of making a
> portion formatted as 2kb sectors and then for the large files / obvious
> backups etc ( 10mb/ 20 mb+ ? files) using ... say 64kb clusters. I've
> been reading similiar questions via google, and don't want to start a
> fight about what's "best",
> http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18335.html
> just asking for others that set it up with small/large clusters - was it
> worth it ? Less waste ?
>


To add to the other post, at the current cost of hard drive space, that 72MB
is costing about 2 cents.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]

"Rock" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "- Bobb -" wrote
>> I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them,
>> also thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
>> partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
>> during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm watching
>> not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check properties, I
>> can see avg filesize is only 1mb. I do have a lot of larger folders there
>> too, but some of the older folders are copies of old CDs or previous pc
>> folders that have a lot of 1 kb files in there - bringing that " average"
>> down to 1mb. I just made a few partititons and on a 235 gb partition -
>> with 4kb clusters (default), it's already used 72mb in formatting and I
>> haven't "wasted" space with any of my stuff yet. So to not waste so much
>> space on the new drives for old/small stuff, I'm thinking of making a
>> portion formatted as 2kb sectors and then for the large files / obvious
>> backups etc ( 10mb/ 20 mb+ ? files) using ... say 64kb clusters. I've
>> been reading similiar questions via google, and don't want to start a
>> fight about what's "best",
>> http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18335.html
>> just asking for others that set it up with small/large clusters - was it
>> worth it ? Less waste ?
>>
>
>
> To add to the other post, at the current cost of hard drive space, that
> 72MB is costing about 2 cents.
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]


And correct me someone if I am wrong but with a 2K cluster size, the size of
the System area (the 72 MB now showing) will increase dramatically when it
doubles the amount of clusters (4K to 2K) to store that cluster
information.

"Rock" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> "- Bobb -" <bobb@noemail.123> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them,
>> also thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
>> partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
>> during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm
>> watching not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check
>> properties, I can see avg filesize is only 1mb. Set it up with
>> small/large clusters - worth it ? Less waste ?
>
>
> What significant gain do you hope to achieve?
>
> --
> Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
Wasting 1/8 the space on smaller files. The drive has about 130,000 files
and if half of them are small files, then I'd be wasting 65000 * 4k per
cluster or 65000 * 256 per cluster.
It was a yes or no question: I guess your answer is no - thanks

- Bobb - wrote:
> I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them,
> also thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
> partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
> during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm
> watching not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check
> properties, I can see avg filesize is only 1mb. I do have a lot of
> larger folders there too, but some of the older folders are copies of
> old CDs or previous pc folders that have a lot of 1 kb files in
> there - bringing that " average" down to 1mb. I just made a few
> partititons and on a 235 gb partition - with 4kb clusters (default),
> it's already used 72mb in formatting and I haven't "wasted" space
> with any of my stuff yet. So to not waste so much space on the new
> drives for old/small stuff, I'm thinking of making a portion
> formatted as 2kb sectors and then for the large files / obvious
> backups etc ( 10mb/ 20 mb+ ? files) using ... say 64kb clusters.
> I've been reading similiar questions via google, and don't want to
> start a fight about what's "best",
> http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18335.html
> just asking for others that set it up with small/large clusters - was
> it worth it ? Less waste ?

No, IMO it's not worth it. There are so many trade-offs that you might
actually lose some space with 2k clusters, or at least not gain as much as
it seems like you would. In any case it's going to make such an
imperceptibly small difference that you'll be hard pressed to quantify it.

Try reading about it in wikipedia; good writeup there.

HTH
Pop`

On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:37:42 -0400, "LVTravel" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

>
> "Rock" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > "- Bobb -" wrote
> >> I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them,
> >> also thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
> >> partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
> >> during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm watching
> >> not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check properties, I
> >> can see avg filesize is only 1mb. I do have a lot of larger folders there
> >> too, but some of the older folders are copies of old CDs or previous pc
> >> folders that have a lot of 1 kb files in there - bringing that " average"
> >> down to 1mb. I just made a few partititons and on a 235 gb partition -
> >> with 4kb clusters (default), it's already used 72mb in formatting and I
> >> haven't "wasted" space with any of my stuff yet. So to not waste so much
> >> space on the new drives for old/small stuff, I'm thinking of making a
> >> portion formatted as 2kb sectors and then for the large files / obvious
> >> backups etc ( 10mb/ 20 mb+ ? files) using ... say 64kb clusters. I've
> >> been reading similiar questions via google, and don't want to start a
> >> fight about what's "best",
> >> http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18335.html
> >> just asking for others that set it up with small/large clusters - was it
> >> worth it ? Less waste ?
> >>
> >
> >
> > To add to the other post, at the current cost of hard drive space, that
> > 72MB is costing about 2 cents.
> >
> > --
> > Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
>
>
> And correct me someone if I am wrong but with a 2K cluster size, the size of
> the System area (the 72 MB now showing) will increase dramatically when it
> doubles the amount of clusters (4K to 2K) to store that cluster
> information.


If I understand correctly what you're saying, no, you have it
backwards. The smaller the cluster size, the less space is used.

That's because, on the average, every file wastes roughly half of its
last cluster. So the total waste is roughly the number of files
multiplied by half the cluster size.

But having a non-standard cluster size is generally not a good thing
to do. A smaller cluster size hurts performance because more clusters
have to be read. And as Rock points out, the disk space savings are
trivial.

Back in the DOS/Windows 3.x days, when drives were small and
expensive, people used to partition their drives into many pieces, not
for organizational reasons, but because smaller partitions resulted in
smaller cluster size. They would therefore waste less of their
precious small hard drive space. Today, with our large cheap drives,
it makes no sense to do this, or to use smaller clusters.

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup

XP's NTFS subsystem is optimized to use 4K clusters, especially with
regard to the system cache; if you force another size you will loose a lot
performance-wise - don't do it. goog-hoo around, it's out there...

Ken, I do remember the day when I bought a 245 MB Maxtor drive for $400 and
it had multiple partitions for the very purpose you stated.

The system allocation space in NTFS (what in Fat file system is called The
FAT) will grow whenever you reduce the cluster size because it needs to have
the physical real estate reserved to keep track of all the cluster
information.

Granted that the storage area itself will have more physical clusters and
less area used by each individual file but the Reserved System Space (his
original "72 MB in formatting") will grow. I have checked this area a
couple of times by formatting a few new drives of different sizes with 2K
clusters, running Executive Software's Diskeeper (and some other programs)
to see the system reserve size (allocation space) and then reformatting with
the default 4k clusters. The system reserve size was almost half the size
with 4k clusters than with 2k clusters.

"Ken Blake, MVP" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:37:42 -0400, "LVTravel" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> "Rock" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>> > "- Bobb -" wrote
>> >> I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them,
>> >> also thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
>> >> partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
>> >> during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm
>> >> watching
>> >> not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check properties,
>> >> I
>> >> can see avg filesize is only 1mb. I do have a lot of larger folders
>> >> there
>> >> too, but some of the older folders are copies of old CDs or previous
>> >> pc
>> >> folders that have a lot of 1 kb files in there - bringing that "
>> >> average"
>> >> down to 1mb. I just made a few partititons and on a 235 gb
>> >> partition -
>> >> with 4kb clusters (default), it's already used 72mb in formatting and
>> >> I
>> >> haven't "wasted" space with any of my stuff yet. So to not waste so
>> >> much
>> >> space on the new drives for old/small stuff, I'm thinking of making a
>> >> portion formatted as 2kb sectors and then for the large files /
>> >> obvious
>> >> backups etc ( 10mb/ 20 mb+ ? files) using ... say 64kb clusters. I've
>> >> been reading similiar questions via google, and don't want to start a
>> >> fight about what's "best",
>> >> http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18335.html
>> >> just asking for others that set it up with small/large clusters - was
>> >> it
>> >> worth it ? Less waste ?
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > To add to the other post, at the current cost of hard drive space, that
>> > 72MB is costing about 2 cents.
>> >
>> > --
>> > Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
>>
>>
>> And correct me someone if I am wrong but with a 2K cluster size, the size
>> of
>> the System area (the 72 MB now showing) will increase dramatically when
>> it
>> doubles the amount of clusters (4K to 2K) to store that cluster
>> information.
>
>
> If I understand correctly what you're saying, no, you have it
> backwards. The smaller the cluster size, the less space is used.
>
> That's because, on the average, every file wastes roughly half of its
> last cluster. So the total waste is roughly the number of files
> multiplied by half the cluster size.
>
> But having a non-standard cluster size is generally not a good thing
> to do. A smaller cluster size hurts performance because more clusters
> have to be read. And as Rock points out, the disk space savings are
> trivial.
>
> Back in the DOS/Windows 3.x days, when drives were small and
> expensive, people used to partition their drives into many pieces, not
> for organizational reasons, but because smaller partitions resulted in
> smaller cluster size. They would therefore waste less of their
> precious small hard drive space. Today, with our large cheap drives,
> it makes no sense to do this, or to use smaller clusters.
>
> --
> Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
> Please Reply to the Newsgroup

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007 13:33:21 -0400, "LVTravel" <(E-Mail Removed)>
wrote:

> Ken, I do remember the day when I bought a 245 MB Maxtor drive for $400 and
> it had multiple partitions for the very purpose you stated.
>
> The system allocation space in NTFS (what in Fat file system is called The
> FAT) will grow whenever you reduce the cluster size because it needs to have
> the physical real estate reserved to keep track of all the cluster
> information.
>
> Granted that the storage area itself will have more physical clusters and
> less area used by each individual file but the Reserved System Space (his
> original "72 MB in formatting") will grow. I have checked this area a
> couple of times by formatting a few new drives of different sizes with 2K
> clusters, running Executive Software's Diskeeper (and some other programs)
> to see the system reserve size (allocation space) and then reformatting with
> the default 4k clusters. The system reserve size was almost half the size
> with 4k clusters than with 2k clusters.


Thanks for the info. I'm not familiar with this. I've googled around,
and came up with this article, http://support.microsoft.com/kb/174619,
but it seems to refer only to NT4 and Windows 2000 Server, and not to
XP. Do you have any other links you can point me to with more info
about this?


> "Ken Blake, MVP" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> > On Mon, 18 Jun 2007 22:37:42 -0400, "LVTravel" <(E-Mail Removed)>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
> >> "Rock" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> >> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> >> > "- Bobb -" wrote
> >> >> I've got a few new disks and while debating on how to partition them,
> >> >> also thinking of arranging my old " Archive partition" by size. This
> >> >> partitioned area is only for a library - not used normally for disk IO
> >> >> during normal system operation, so it's utilization of space I'm
> >> >> watching
> >> >> not disk IO speed. It's about 175gb now and when I check properties,
> >> >> I
> >> >> can see avg filesize is only 1mb. I do have a lot of larger folders
> >> >> there
> >> >> too, but some of the older folders are copies of old CDs or previous
> >> >> pc
> >> >> folders that have a lot of 1 kb files in there - bringing that "
> >> >> average"
> >> >> down to 1mb. I just made a few partititons and on a 235 gb
> >> >> partition -
> >> >> with 4kb clusters (default), it's already used 72mb in formatting and
> >> >> I
> >> >> haven't "wasted" space with any of my stuff yet. So to not waste so
> >> >> much
> >> >> space on the new drives for old/small stuff, I'm thinking of making a
> >> >> portion formatted as 2kb sectors and then for the large files /
> >> >> obvious
> >> >> backups etc ( 10mb/ 20 mb+ ? files) using ... say 64kb clusters. I've
> >> >> been reading similiar questions via google, and don't want to start a
> >> >> fight about what's "best",
> >> >> http://www.techspot.com/vb/topic18335.html
> >> >> just asking for others that set it up with small/large clusters - was
> >> >> it
> >> >> worth it ? Less waste ?
> >> >>
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > To add to the other post, at the current cost of hard drive space, that
> >> > 72MB is costing about 2 cents.
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]
> >>
> >>
> >> And correct me someone if I am wrong but with a 2K cluster size, the size
> >> of
> >> the System area (the 72 MB now showing) will increase dramatically when
> >> it
> >> doubles the amount of clusters (4K to 2K) to store that cluster
> >> information.
> >
> >
> > If I understand correctly what you're saying, no, you have it
> > backwards. The smaller the cluster size, the less space is used.
> >
> > That's because, on the average, every file wastes roughly half of its
> > last cluster. So the total waste is roughly the number of files
> > multiplied by half the cluster size.
> >
> > But having a non-standard cluster size is generally not a good thing
> > to do. A smaller cluster size hurts performance because more clusters
> > have to be read. And as Rock points out, the disk space savings are
> > trivial.
> >
> > Back in the DOS/Windows 3.x days, when drives were small and
> > expensive, people used to partition their drives into many pieces, not
> > for organizational reasons, but because smaller partitions resulted in
> > smaller cluster size. They would therefore waste less of their
> > precious small hard drive space. Today, with our large cheap drives,
> > it makes no sense to do this, or to use smaller clusters.
> >
> > --
> > Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
> > Please Reply to the Newsgroup
>

--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please Reply to the Newsgroup