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I'm formatting a 1TB external hard drive as NTFS. This drive is mainly meant for storing media such as music and video. What should I choose for the allocation unit size setting? The options range from 512 bytes to 64K. Are there any guidelines that I might apply to other drive types? Should I stop poking around and just leave it at "default?" | |||
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if you are a "Stander User" as what Microsoft called, you should keep the default 4096 bytes. Basically, the allocation unite size is the black size on your hard drive when it formates NFTS, if you have lots of small really small files, than its a good idea to keep the allocation size small so this way your harddrive space won't be wasted. If you have lots of large files, keep it higher will increase the system performance by having less blocks to seek. But again, nowadays hard drive capacity is getting higher and higher it makes small different by choosing the right allocation size. Suggest you to just keep the default also keep in mind that the majority file are relatively small, larger files are large in size but small in unites. | |||||||
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It can make a difference. A file can only be a multiple of whatever you select, so a finer grained format will mean you will waste less space on files - but make your allocation table bigger. If you're going to have thousands of files under 64k it's worth considering a lower size unit. However, if you're going to fill the drive with huge, hundred megabyte videos, then a higher unit size is more applicable. If you don't know, just go with the default. | |||
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I always use the default | |||
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