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What "allocation unit size" should I use for a drive with a single NTFS partition?


I'm formatting a 1TB external hard drive as a single NTFS partition. This drive is mainly meant for storing media.


Should I choose something other than the default allocation unit size? The options range from 512 bytes to 64K. Are there any guidelines that I should use with partitions storing other data? Should I stop poking around and just leave it at "default"?



Answer



If you are a "Standard User" by Microsoft's definition, you should keep the default 4096 bytes. Basically, the allocation unit size is the block size on your hard drive when it formats NFTS. If you have lots of small files, then it's a good idea to keep the allocation size small so your hard drive space won't be wasted. If you have lots of large files, keeping it higher will increase the system performance by having less blocks to seek.


But again, nowadays hard drive capacity is getting higher and higher making small differences by choosing the right allocation size. I suggest you just keep the default.


Also keep in mind that the majority of files are relatively small, larger files are large in size but small in units.


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