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Thread: Allocation Unit size?

  1. #1
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    Allocation Unit size?

    Just got my new Samsung 160 GB hard drive....

    When formatting it it asks for the 'Allocation Unit Size'

    What should i set it at?

    Thanx in advance!

    Applecrusher

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    I'd say, the smaller the better.

    If "Allocation Unit Size" is the same thing as "Cluster Size" (And I'm assuming it is), then the smaller those clusters, the smaller the waste when a file occupies a cluster partially (Seeing as a single cluster cannot be allocated to more than one file).

    If I recall correctly, under FAT32, having more (smaller) clusters meant having a larger File Allocation Table, which meant more space used, either way. In that case, the question you had to ask is, "On average, how big are my files - small or large?" and based on that, opt to use smaller or larger cluster sizes.

    However, NTFS, as I understand, removes this limitation, so the choice is obvious. How the size will affect drive speeds is another matter, but with my Sammies doing 55MB/s on average, I'm not much worried.

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