Should I resize clusters on hard drive to save wasted space?

[Michael]

I just installed an 80 GB hard drive and XP set the cluster size at 4K which
makes wasted space around 120MB. Should I resize clusters to 2K? 1K? 512
bytes? to save wasted space? or just leave it alone. I am using Partition
Magic 8

 

[Ralf Baumhoefer]

IF you want to use LOTS AND LOTS of small files: YES.
If not, or you don't know : NO

 

[Plato]

I just installed an 80 GB hard drive and XP set the cluster size at 4K which
makes wasted space around 120MB. Should I resize clusters to 2K? 1K? 512
bytes? to save wasted space? or just leave it alone. I am using Partition
Magic 8

Leave it at 4K.

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I just installed an 80 GB hard drive and XP set the cluster size at
4K which makes wasted space around 120MB. Should I resize clusters to
2K? 1K? 512 bytes? to save wasted space? or just leave it alone. I am
using Partition Magic 8

Leave it.
It's 120MB. If you get that close to using up all the space, buy the 400GB
drive and hook it up.

 

[Al Dykes]

Leave it.
It's 120MB. If you get that close to using up all the space, buy the 400GB
drive and hook it up.

120MB is about 2% of your disk, why worry about it.

If you've got an NTFS filesystem you can get more than that
back by applying file system compression to the drive.

If you are close to filling up your disk your system will start
slowing down. Disk defragmentation will be part of the problem.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In

I just installed an 80 GB hard drive and XP set the cluster size at
4K which makes wasted space around 120MB. Should I resize clusters to
2K? 1K? 512 bytes? to save wasted space? or just leave it alone. I am
using Partition Magic 8

4K clusters are normal and desirable. Do not change it.

Bear in mind that if you paid, say, $100 US for your drive, that
120MB you are worrying about is around $.15 worth--an
insignificant amount.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I just installed an 80 GB hard drive and XP set the cluster size at 4K which
makes wasted space around 120MB. Should I resize clusters to 2K? 1K? 512
bytes? to save wasted space? or just leave it alone. I am using Partition
Magic 8

Leave it. 4k is the optimum size for windows, because it is the same as
the internal page size used in Virtual Memory in Intel architecture
processors. This means that transfers between RAM and hard disk (page
file, or program load) can be direct without need to buffer.

In any case the loss in 'cluster overhang' at 4k is not great as a
proportion of a typical disk; smaller sizes apart from the inefficiency,
become increasingly susceptible to fragmentation

 

[Sunny]

PM8 warns about setting cluster sizes smaller than 4K, and I for one heeded
that warning.
btw make sure you get the update to Ver. 8.01, before Symantec pull it (like
they did for the powerquest instructional videos).

 

[Plato]

4K clusters are normal and desirable. Do not change it.

Bear in mind that if you paid, say, $100 US for your drive, that
120MB you are worrying about is around $.15 worth--an
insignificant amount.

Agreed.