*decrease* MFT size

[Guest]

782GB RAID5 array when created as a basic NTFS disk winds up with a 100+GB MFT. To say that's excessive is an understatement. I know there's a registry key that allows you to INCREASE the MFT size on partition creation, but is there a way to DECREASE it instead. The default setting of 1 forces about 12% of the disk to MFT. in the case of this large a disk I'd like to make that MUCH smaller, say 1GB at the maximum. The amount of data this partition is already storing is exceeding 600GB and the fact that the MFT is so huge prevents any form of defragmentation from being effective

Thank

-- John

 

[Pat [MSFT]]

How much of the MFT is in use? Generally it grows only as needed. Also,
NTFS reserves the space around the MFT to allow it to grow (an attempt to
prevent fragmentation), but the file system will use that space if other
space on the volume is gone (i.e. it is 'reserved' but not 'committed').

You don't mention which OS you have, but starting w/WinXP & Win2k3, the
included defrag utility can address MFT fragmentation problems as well.
There are (I believe) several defrag utilities that can handle MFT defrag on
Win2k.

Pat