OpenEuphoria

Re: cluster size

• Posted by Elliott Sales de Andrade <quantum_analyst at hotmail.com> Jan 27, 2002
• 458 views

It doesn't matter what patition the drive is on. It depends on what the 
cluster size is set to when it is formatted. The drive is seperated into 
blocks of 512 bytes. When it is changed to FAT32, you can set it to 8, 16, 
32, 64 or 128 blocks per cluster. When you create a file, it takes up at 
least one of these clusters. The filename does take up space in the FAT 
tables, but that is pre-allocated. In Win95-OSR2 and Win98 there is a 
program that you can use to change from FAT16 to FAT32 and you can choose 
the cluster size. Unfortunately, you ca't change it later on unless you 
reformat the drive or use non-destructive methods.


>From: Kat <gertie at PELL.NET>
>Reply-To: EUforum at topica.com
>To: EUforum <EUforum at topica.com>
>Subject: Re: cluster size
>Date: Sun, 27 Jan 2002 14:06:43 -0600
>
>
>On 27 Jan 2002, at 8:09, vern at lvp.eastlink.ca wrote:
>
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Kat" <gertie at PELL.NET>
> > To: "EUforum" <EUforum at topica.com>
> > Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2002 2:04 AM
> > Subject: Re: cluster size
> >
> >
> > > On 26 Jan 2002, at 21:15, Dan Moyer wrote:
> > >
> > > >
> > > > Does anyone know how I can programmatically find out what is the 
>minimum
> > > > cluster size used on a drive?  I'm under the impression that it can
> > vary,
> > > > since a small file (little bigger than a Kb) on one drive takes up 
>4096
> > > > bytes, and the same file on another drive takes up 8192 bytes.  Both
> > drives
> > > > indicate FAT32 from fdisk.
> > >
> > > I think Euman did a include to get all the drive stats.
> > >
> > > > And am I right in thinking that it is cluster size rather than 
>simply
> > file
> > > > size that relates to how much of a drive is used up?  In other 
>words, if
> > you
> > > > have a whole bunch of small files, each actually takes up (at least) 
>one
> > > > cluster, so more of your drive may be used up than would seem so 
>from
> > just
> > > > adding up file sizes?
> > >
> > >  Correct. The dos 8.3 filename takes up one slot, 9.3 takes up one 
>more
> > > slot, and each 7chars over that will count as another filename slot 
>too
> > under
> > > fat32.
> > >
> > > Kat
> > >
> > >
> > One reason, I believe, is that the 1st FAT32 drive is the native drive 
>and
> > the second drive is a FAT32b partition (extended DOS and Logical Drive), 
>the
>
>But that is not what he said, he said 2nd drive. I have more than one drive 
>in
>all my computers.
>
>Kat
>
>
> > extra size being additional logical making, an unfortunate side effect 
>of DOS'
> > single sized cluster size, fortunately the solution is to install a Unix 
>os and
> > format cluster at 1024  :)
> >
> > >
>
>
>