NTFS cluster size with Convert.exe

[Jeriko]

I'm going to be converting a 60GB HD, and according to the MS help database the convert tool will default to 512 sized clusters. But apparently, for a drive this size, 4096 is ideal.

Is there any way to convert from FAT32 into 4096 sized clusters?

-J

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: Jeriko
I'm going to be converting a 60GB HD, and according to the MS help database the convert tool will default to 512 sized clusters. But apparently, for a drive this size, 4096 is ideal. Is there any way to convert from FAT32 into 4096 sized clusters? -J

I think Partition Magic will do this for you in place or you can ghost off the drive, format it with 4k clusters and then restore the ghost image to it. Unfortunately you can't do this in place with just the MS tools.

Bill

 

[Budman]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: Jeriko
I'm going to be converting a 60GB HD, and according to the MS help database the convert tool will default to 512 sized clusters. But apparently, for a drive this size, 4096 is ideal. Is there any way to convert from FAT32 into 4096 sized clusters? -J

I think Partition Magic will do this for you in place or you can ghost off the drive, format it with 4k clusters and then restore the ghost image to it. Unfortunately you can't do this in place with just the MS tools.

Bill

Yes Partition magic would be the best way.

bsobel, if you ghost a drive that's 512 cluster wouldnt the restored drive be 512 also?

I think unfortunately even if you format to 4k prior to restoring a ghost you would still be stuck with a 512 drive. :frown:

 

[Nothinman]

bsobel, if you ghost a drive that's 512 cluster wouldnt the restored drive be 512 also?

I think unfortunately even if you format to 4k prior to restoring a ghost you would still be stuck with a 512 drive.

Depends on how far ghost goes. I know it resizes partitions, but that's a fairly simple task compared to changing cluster sizes.

 

[bsobel]

bsobel, if you ghost a drive that's 512 cluster wouldnt the restored drive be 512 also?

Your right, for some reason I thought the current version now allowed you to specify that when doing the restore. I'll ping a friend down in NZ and figure out why I thought it was already available/will it be available/should I lay off the crack for a bit 😉

Bill

 

[Lord Evermore]

In order for it to change the cluster size, it would have to completely realign all the data while it was restored, which is a LOT of work to do. Partition Magic does this when you change a cluster size. What has to happen is for each cluster, the 7 immediately after it have to be cleared to make a 4K cluster. The data from those 7 has to be moved elsewhere. Then the 9th cluster becomes number 2 and has to have another 7 cleared to make a 4K cluster. That has to be done through the entire drive, moving possibly of 7/8th of the data around the drive. Clusters which compose contiguous files wouldn't need to be moved of course, but all their MFT entries have to be updated too.

Ghost might have an easier time of it, since it can selectively read the image and restore the data. If it is capable of reading the image, recognizing the NTFS format and reading it, and writing to NTFS and modifying the MFT and all the directory and file indexes, then it could simply restore each 512K cluster and leave "gaps" where the extra 7 clusters would be (modified based on the actual file size of course to determine total number of clusters), then modify the MFT for the files as they're restored. No need to copy and move all the data, but still a lot of processing and sorting and reindexing.