|
The following
tables illustrate below the various cluster size limitations for
each particular file system. Why should you care about the cluster
size of your partition? Because you can save a great deal of space
by choosing the right file system .
For
example, if
your file is 1K in size and your cluster size is 32K, then you've
just wasted 31K of "slack" space for that file.
FAT/FAT16
(DOS/Windows 95/Windows NT)
| Partition
Size |
Cluster
Size |
| 0
- 127MB |
2K |
| 128
- 255MB |
4K |
| 256
- 511MB |
8K |
| 512
- 1023MB |
16K |
| 1024
- 2047MB |
32K |
Note: FAT16 is limited to 2GB per partition.
FAT32
(Windows 95 version 950B or 950C/Windows 98)
| Partition
Size |
Cluster
Size |
| 512MB
or less |
4K |
| 8GB
- 16GBB |
8K |
| 16GB
- 32GB |
16K |
| 32GB
or more |
32K |
Note: A partition formatted as FAT32 can only been seen in
Windows 95 version 950B/950C or Windows 98. Eariler versions of
Windows 95, DOS 6.22, or even Windows NT 4.0 cannot recognize FAT32
partitions!
NTFS
(Windows NT)
| Partition
Size |
Sectors/Cluster |
Cluster
Size |
| 512MB
or less |
1 |
512
bytes |
| 513MB
- 1024MB (1GB) |
2 |
1K |
| 1025MB
- 2048MB (2GB) |
4 |
2K |
| 2049MB
- 4096MB (4GB) |
8 |
4K |
| 4097MB
- 8192MB (8GB) |
16 |
8K |
| 8193MB
- 16,384MB (16GB) |
32 |
16K |
| 16,385MB
- 32,768MB (32GB) |
64 |
32K |
| 32GB
or more |
128 |
64K |
|
