|
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 |
|
