Anyone have any suggestions on optimum HDD cluster size?

[Mordacain]

Guess this post would go here. I haven't messed with different cluster sizes in a awhile, and was wondering if anyone had any advice. Basically, I'm curous to know if you can tweak these to see a read/write speed increase. Currently running two Samsung 40GB SATA 2's in RAID 0 at default NTFS clustering size.

Thanks!
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[fussnfeathers]

Default cluster size is the best, really. If you happen to be a professional graphics artist, or movie studio worker, you could see a benefit from larger cluster sizes..........but only because you'd be working with single, massive files.

Using a larger cluster size than "standard" for a regular Joe user can actually wind up wasting disk space. Say you set your cluster size to 128kb (which is the max size, I believe). Now, anytime something is written to that cluster, it "uses" the whole 128kb.....so, if you play a game, and save a new map or two, and wind up with, say, 10 files that end with a 2kb cluster, you've just wasted 1260kb to save 20kb worth of file. Now, add up, say, 70 or 80 different programs that are working on a regular basis, you can easily wind up with a 15-20% space over-use, if not more.

Stick with the 4kb size, it's the best way to go.
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[Mordacain]

Thanks, that was pretty much my understanding, good to have it confirmed.

I might wind up using it for paritions I do Divx Encoding and such on.
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Where are all the stupid people from and how'd they get to be so dumb? - NOFX, "The Decline"