Squeeky

THis is kinda noobish so i feel stupid asking but anyway. When you format a drive in windows xp, 2k or 2k3 it gives you an allocation unit size. I have a slight idea what this means but could anyone tell me if there is any advantage to changing it from default to something bigger.

Cheers Squeeky

thiru

According to the help, small allocation unit sizes are better, but it says that you should leave the default, as it adapts to the size of the hard drive... I left it at default.

TourTeX

That happens everytime you reformat on any OS i believe its the size of the partition for instance if you want your harddrive to be shown as 2 drives of 40gb and you have 80gb hard drive than you make 2 partitions of 400,000mb make sense?

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Syrillian

I would leave them at default, unless there is a specific reason that requires you to change them. The OS will manage the size automatically.

Here is some info if you feel like a short read:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314878

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SpookedJunglist

Smaller AUs are better for preserving space. I have not played with it much but I know what a AU is. it is the size that your FAT uses for its smallest unit of space. So if your AU size is 56 bytes then a 46 byte file will only take up one allocation unit of 56 bytes, but if the file is 57 bytes it will take up 2 AUs and 112 bytes. hope this helps

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Squeeky

wow cheers SpookedJunglist that really helps me understand TourTeX i have no idea what you were going on about i was talking about allocation units not partitions

thiru

NTFS uses it too. The format tool in Windows asks for a AU size even if you select NTFS. And the default is the biggest (4096 B), at least for my 80GB HDD.

Is there a reason not to pick the smallest AU?

SpookedJunglist

I am not sure but I think that a larger AU would help prevent fragmentation. but that is only if the file system will right to that AU again. If a log file is on one AU that is half full and it writes to it again it would prevent the creation of another AU that would create file fragmentation. When I get back home I might give it a shot on my main rig. I will try a couple of AU sizes and run HDtach and record the results. I might even try to fragment the drives and retest beforeI reinstall windows

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thiru

That's very generous of you and I'm saying that sincerely, because I don't know if I'd have the motivation to do it..