Windows 7 max system cluster size?

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rive22

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Does anyone know if this will allow higher than 4kb cluster size? I normally use 32kb for the system in windows xp and 64kb for my files drives. I am using a 2 year old single core laptop so yes I definitely notice the difference in using larger clusters on the system drive. This 4kb is not what I'm looking for especially since the average file size on the drive from a fresh install is roughly 164kb, that's a super lot of spreading overhead, I don't care about file compression or any of that. I tried to make it higher using acronis and it won't do it.

Does anyone know any registry tweaks to disable some options to get around this or what may be preventing this?

Thanks!
 
It's probably has the same options as XP and Vista. I don't recall the Disk Management tool having many changes made.
 
It wouldn't let me do 64 or 32, I'll try 16 in a few minutes. I had the partition preformated with 32kb before the install and windows wouldn't install on it untill I let it do it's own thing.
 
I can format it anyway I like no problem, but windows 7 won't install over the partition unless it's 4kb clusters. I tried 16 and acronis disk was able to do the switch over but then it wouldn't boot. I formatted again using 16kb and then tried to do fresh install over it and still no go. Reinstalled again with 4kb. =/ It's a bit sluggish even with aero off. I'm sure there's a way around this somehow =P
 
The reading I've done suggests that the problem relates to the boot loader. No guarantees, but try this:


  • Create a small partition as first partition on the drive, using 4k clusters.
  • Create a secondary partition using the cluster size you desire.
  • Install Vista to the secondary partition.


Hopefully, that'll allow the install to go ahead. The boot loader will be located on the small first (boot) partition and the Vista install will be located on the secondary partition. You can afterwards set the boot partition to 'Hidden' (so that it doesn't appear in 'Computer') and it'll still work OK.

According to this:
http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=184377


Fair amount of irrelevent stuff in that discussion, because the discussion is really aimed at resolving the problem of a 'fails to boot' scenario where the cluster size has been resized after installation using a 3rd party tool. But the relevent gist of discussion indicates that the boot loader needs to reside on a 4k cluster sized, Vista (or Vista installer) created partition.
 
Messing with cluster sizes isn't going to net you any increases in performance, much to the dismay of those who believe otherwise. The only instance where you may actually be able to measure the difference is in video editing situations with very large streams of data. It's been shown in benchmarks that when using NTFS formatted with a 64KB cluster size that video streaming activity is roughly 25% more efficient (note I didn't say faster) over the default 4KB cluster size.

Also, people seem to need to be continuously reminded that the file system cluster size is a logical one and not the actual cluster size. On SSD hardware things are different, but on physical hard drives (magnetic media), the data exists on the platters in 512 byte chunks; that's how large the physical sectors are, which are then mapped to logical sectors by the file system applied to the platters.

If you had 500 billion images on a drive you might notice a difference in read performance if you matched the logical clusters to the average file size, but in day to day operation on "normal" drives with "normal" usage, modifying the logical cluster size of the file system is not only not recommended but can result in some issues you really don't want to get involved with... the so-called "difference" is nothing more than a psychological thing: it wouldn't actually measure out in a disk performance benchmark if you tested it. There wouldn't be a sudden massive huge boost in performance from 4KB to 64KB, it'll still give you the same read/write performance.

But I digress... YMMV, but the consensus is still, as always, leave it alone.
 
Agree, by the way, that it's not actually something worth doing!

I'm merely aware that the 'psychological' thing can be so intense that people will be bloody-minded about it no matter how much advice/evidence they see to the contrary :)

A 2 year old singlecore laptop? Relevent question in relation to that is how much RAM does it have fitted? The singlecore/dualcore/multicore scenariop really impacts on usage patterns - if it has a singlecore chip you're silly try multi-tasking as heavily. But if it's starved for RAM all round performance can suffer. If it only has 1Gb RAM or less I'd stick with XP on the thing. With 2Gb or more Vista or Windows 7 become more manageable.
 
I've tested it numerous times over and over again comparing them side by side and while on new machines one can't really tell, on older machines I can definitely tell the difference. Of course the physical drive speed isn't going to increase, but the system responsiveness is improved. When I install XP with 4kb everything is slow and sluggish and you hear the drive making A LOT of noise working it's little butt off while moving about the system. When I install 64kb everything is very very snappy and no fuss. Space is an issue of course so usually I compromise with 32kb for the system. The difference that I can tell is basically the same as knocking your ram timings down (while using ddr2).

For my files drives it makes a big difference too, especially with videos as you say. And not even editing but even just the plain loading in the shell media handler. When I used default clusters the video icons would crawl to load doing about 1 video thumbnail per second, but with 64kb all the thumbnail icons load in an instant (even for the very first time.)

I hear ya and I know all about the debate so I'm not one that's going to fuss trying to change people's minds, I notice the diff and that's good enough for me. What you say makes good sense, but even with 512 byte chunks doesn't it seem like using substantially smaller logical clusters than the actual file size would still be creating a lot more work for the file system since most files these days on even just regular operation system installs average in size many many times over 4kb?

I notice the same thing in reverse as well. As a test one day I took a folder of 5,000 1kb shortcuts and I tried to load it on a few separate partitions (very small partitions so the locations on the drive weren't affecting performance). This time the larger cluster partitions were at a complete hault while the smaller cluster partitions loaded the shortcuts in a snap.

Run some tests if you want. Even with new machines that pick up most of the slack making a near seamless transition, just knowing the difference is still there, I will undoubtedly continue to always use 64kb on my multimedia files drives and I would use more if it allowed it. 16kb would seem like a decent compromise for windows thanks for that tip Catweazle I will definitely give that a try on my next format. For now I've already got a bunch of stuff installed so I might wait a few days. I have all the visual animations disabled and it's still pretty sluggish. If I'm working on one thing at a time it's fine, but I can't multitask for anything, and opening my files folders brings the system to it's knees. I might just throw xp back on here.

Thanks guys :)

btw yeah this thing only holds 1gb of ram so that could be a lot of the prob too like you say. I'm using a trimmed down version that I made in vlite. I think I'll just throw xp back on with 32kb clusters. I'm tellin ya guys, when I put 4kb on here with xp the machine runs the way you would expect a single core 2 year old laptop to run, slow and dull. With 32kb, I can multitask my heart out without a hitch. (Not counting video editing things like that). But just being able to do 15 different random things at once without a hitch. :D
 
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The basic gist is: the physical sector size (how the hard drive actually places data on the platters) has nothing to do with the file system or the logical cluster size. Funny how that works but, it's entirely accurate. :)

This type of stuff only applies to old slow ass machinery; in today's world of fairly high speed everything, the potential difference in performance is several places past the decimal point in terms of percentage, aka "not even relevant."

I'll still bet on the perceived performance benefits you're having as being psychological in nature... :D
 
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