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I can reformat a brand new 2TB WD Passport drive to exFAT, with choice of many 'Allocation Unit Size':
which one is best if this drive is mainly used for recording HDTV programs using Media Center on Windows 7? thanks.
Durable and dependable, Internal Hard Drives are a vital part of every device most especially computers. They are responsible for storing all types of data, including pictures, music, videos, and text documents for your desktop's operating system.
Launch Disk Utility and then click to select the external hard drive listed on the left. Click the 'Erase' tab, choose a volume format from the drop-down menu and then type a name for the drive. The Mac OS X Extended volume format is optimal for Macs; the Journaled option enables the system to log and keep track of files. Naturally, MOV is the standard and best video format for Mac. It is known to have the best video quality of all three streaming formats listed here. MP4 (A digital multimedia format most commonly used to store video and audio, subtitles and still images.). The best ways to format an external drive for Windows and Mac. Compare the different options for formatting an external hard drive to work with Windows and Mac. And, no: the answer isn't always FAT32. How you format a Mac hard drive is entirely dependent on what kind of drive you plan on formatting. For instance, is the hard drive internal or external? Geek Best Black Friday Deals: Switch. If you’re looking for a rugged, Mac-friendly, super fast external hard drive that can handle plenty of bumps, dust, rain, and bounces, take a look at LaCie’s Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C portable hard drive. The distinctive orange rubber bumpers and brushed aluminum chassis stand out from the rest of the drives out there.
This is related to question:Is it best to reformat our external Hard drive to exFAT for compatibility with Mac?
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6 Answers
You should first understand what
Allocation Unit Size (AUS)
means.
It is the smallest data block on the disk. Your actual data will be seperated to those units while saving to the disk. For example, if you have a file sized 512KB and you have 128KB allocation unit size, your file will be saved in 4 units in the disk (512KB/128KB).
If your file's size is 500KB and you have 128KB AUS, your file still be saved in 4 units in the disk because as mentioned above 128KB is the smallest size of an allocation unit. 384KB will be allocated in 3 units and remaining 116KB will be allocated in another unit. You can observe this behaviour on file properties screen on Windows, what is your file size and how much space this file actually covers on the disk. And the operating system reads only that AUSd much data at a low level disk read operation.
Those being said, using large AUS significantly reduces the free space utilization due to not using the last allocation unit completely. And as a side effect, the number of files to store on the disk is reduced due to same problem, last AU not being used fully. But, here's the trade-off, using large AUS, significantly again, improves the disk reading performance. The O.S can read more data at one read. Imagine, O.S makes couple of disk reads to completely read a GB sized file!.
Using small AUS improves the free space utilization but reduces the disk read performance. Think using large AUS in reverse, same category problems and improvements, but in reverse..
So, what is the conclusion here? If you will store large, I mean 'large!', files on the disk, higher AUS will give you appreciable read performance while reducing the file count and free space..
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Which AUS you should use? This depends on how much your average file size is. Also you can compute the free space utilization according to your file sizes.
The_aLiEnThe_aLiEn
Given that HD recordings are large files, a large allocation unit (16384 or 32768 KB) will give better performance. The impact of slack space (space wasted due to allocation units not used fully--files are stored in allocation units which must be used as whole units) will be limited with a small number of files. On the other hand, if you have many smaller files, use a smaller allocation unit to reduce wasted space.
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You can safely use 4K allocation unit for exFAT. Even if you have thousands of small files you won't waste a lot of space. In case of default 128KB allocation unit for e.g. 64GB usb stick, 1024 files of 4K bytes will occupy 128MB instead of 4MB, since every file requires at least one allocation unit.
If you use your disk mostly for audio and video files use a larger allocation unit.
FAT32 is not an option for disks larger than 32GB so choose whatever Windows allows.
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Basically, the larger the files you intend on keeping the larger each allocation unit size you may want in use - but not too big or too small! I think DragonLord explained it pretty well.
So if wasted space bugs you then maybe you might want to think about using a different file system. Something like EXT4 perhaps. Problem there is Microsoft OS's (Windows, really) don't work too well with anything other than FAT (vFAT, FAT32, etc.) or NTFS. And if you ever end up with files larger than 4Gig you may end up cursing any FAT type system you may be using. Therefore, I would recommend using the NTFS file system with the recommended allocation unit size (I believe that's 4K). That way, if you end up with files larger than 4Gig you will still be able to store your monster files at least until you can break them up or transcode them into something smaller. (I assume we're talking about huge multimedia files which is why I bring up 'transcoding' since I seem to always find ways to make files smaller when I transcode, especially if they were recorded using MCE.)
About the only reason I can see for using FAT (vFAT, FAT32, FAT16, etc.) is so that other operating systems can read/write files on the storage device. FAT is about as universally accepted as it gets. Otherwise, I don't recommend using FAT (unless the device's capacity is 4Gig or less) - use NTFS at least for Windows. You can always make another partition with a different file system even if it's on the same physical drive. Hope it helps.
AnonymousAnonymous
As Wikipedia says:
To provide improvement in the allocation of cluster storage for a new file, Microsoft incorporated a method to pre-allocate contiguous clusters and bypass the use of updating the FAT table.
So basically you could choose 4KB or smaller allocation unit with exFAT and be safe when writing bigger files, like HD video material.
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Default cluster sizes for NTFS
The following table describes the default cluster sizes for NTFS.Volume size Windows NT 3.51 Windows NT 4.0 Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 20007 MB–512 MB 512 bytes 4 KB 4 KB512 MB–1 GB 1 KB 4 KB 4 KB1 GB–2 GB 2 KB 4 KB 4 KB2 GB–2 TB 4 KB 4 KB 4 KB2 TB–16 TB Not Supported* Not Supported* 4 KB16TB–32 TB Not Supported* Not Supported* 8 KB32TB–64 TB Not Supported* Not Supported* 16 KB64TB–128 TB Not Supported* Not Supported* 32 KB128TB–256 TB Not Supported* Not Supported* 64 KB
256 TB Not Supported Not Supported Not Supported
Note The asterisk (*) means that it is not supported because of the limitations of the master boot record (MBR). Default cluster sizes for FAT16
The following table describes the default cluster sizes for FAT16.Volume size Windows NT 3.51 Windows NT 4.0 Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000 7 MB–8 MB Not supported Not supported Not supported8 MB–32 MB 512 bytes 512 bytes 512 bytes32 MB–64 MB 1 KB 1 KB 1 KB64 MB–128 MB 2 KB 2 KB 2 KB128 MB–256 MB 4 KB 4 KB 4 KB256 MB–512 MB 8 KB 8 KB 8 KB512 MB–1 GB 16 KB 16 KB 16 KB1 GB–2 GB 32 KB 32 KB 32 KB2 GB–4 GB 64 KB 64 KB 64 KB4 GB–8 GB Not supported 128 KB* Not supported8 GB–16 GB Not supported 256 KB* Not supported
16 GB Not supported Not supported Not supported Note The asterisk (*) means that it is available only on media with a sector size greater than 512 bytes. Default cluster sizes for FAT32
The following table describes the default cluster sizes for FAT32.Volume size Windows NT 3.51 Windows NT 4.0 Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP, Windows 2000 7 MB–16MB Not supported Not supported Not supported16 MB–32 MB 512 bytes 512 bytes Not supported32 MB–64 MB 512 bytes 512 bytes 512 bytes64 MB–128 MB 1 KB 1 KB 1 KB128 MB–256 MB 2 KB 2 KB 2 KB256 MB–8GB 4 KB 4 KB 4 KB8GB–16GB 8 KB 8 KB 8 KB16GB–32GB 16 KB 16 KB 16 KB32GB–2TB 32 KB Not supported Not supported
2TB Not supported Not supported Not supported Default cluster sizes for exFAT
The following table describes the default cluster sizes for exFAT.Volume size Windows 7, Windows Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP7 MB–256 MB 4 KB256 MB–32 GB 32 KB32 GB–256 TB 128 KB
256 TB Not supported
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When you have a new hard drive, or when you're reinstalling Windows, the OS may ask you to format the drive. If given a choice, the two common modes are NTFS and FAT32. But what are those, and why would you choose one over the other? We break down the differences between FAT32 vs. NTFS.
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What They Mean
FAT32 is the older of the two drive formats. FAT32 is the most common version of the FAT (File Allocation Table) file system created back in 1977 by Microsoft. It eventually found its way on the IBM PC's PC-DOS in 1981, and carried over to MS-DOS when that became a standalone product. FAT had been the standard format for floppy disks and hard drives all through the DOS years, and versions of Windows up to and including Windows 8.
FAT32 is the older of the two drive formats. FAT32 is the most common version of the FAT (File Allocation Table) file system created back in 1977 by Microsoft. It eventually found its way on the IBM PC's PC-DOS in 1981, and carried over to MS-DOS when that became a standalone product. FAT had been the standard format for floppy disks and hard drives all through the DOS years, and versions of Windows up to and including Windows 8.
NTFS (New Technology Files System) is the newer drive format. Microsoft introduced NTFS in 1993, as a component of the corporate-oriented Windows NT 3.1 and then Windows 2000, though it didn't become common on consumer PCs until Windows XP in 2001. Windows 7 and 8 default to NTFS format on new PCs.
Compatibility
FAT32 is read/write compatible with a majority of recent and recently obsolete operating systems, including DOS, most flavors of Windows (up to and including 8), Mac OS X, and many flavors of UNIX-descended operating systems, including Linux and FreeBSD.
FAT32 is read/write compatible with a majority of recent and recently obsolete operating systems, including DOS, most flavors of Windows (up to and including 8), Mac OS X, and many flavors of UNIX-descended operating systems, including Linux and FreeBSD.
NTFS, on the other hand, is fully read/write compatible with Windows from Windows NT 3.1 and Windows XP up to and including Windows 8. Mac OS X 10.3 and beyond have NFTS read capabilities, but writing to a NTFS volume requires a third party software utility like Paragon NTFS for Mac. There are other hacks and workarounds for NTFS on the Mac, but in any case NTFS is only semi-compatible with OS X. NTFS on Linux systems is spotty for both read and write operations. Look for NTFS-3G driver support on your Linux support page to see if it's built in.
File Size Matters
FAT32 file size support tops out at 4GB and volume size tops out at 2TB. This means that you're limited to 2TB FAT32 partitions if you want to use a 4TB drive. It also means that you are limited to 4GB files. This is a concern with uncompressed high-definition movie files, where 30GB files are not unheard of. Theoretically, NTFS is limited by design to 16EB (Exabytes). One Exabyte is the equivalent of one billion Gigabytes, so we're quite a ways away from maxing out NTFS. In practice, 2 to 4TB volumes are the limit at this time. Larger volumes will require a 64-bit OS and compatible hardware.
FAT32 file size support tops out at 4GB and volume size tops out at 2TB. This means that you're limited to 2TB FAT32 partitions if you want to use a 4TB drive. It also means that you are limited to 4GB files. This is a concern with uncompressed high-definition movie files, where 30GB files are not unheard of. Theoretically, NTFS is limited by design to 16EB (Exabytes). One Exabyte is the equivalent of one billion Gigabytes, so we're quite a ways away from maxing out NTFS. In practice, 2 to 4TB volumes are the limit at this time. Larger volumes will require a 64-bit OS and compatible hardware.
Which is Faster?
While file transfer speed and maximum throughput is limited by the slowest link (usually the hard drive interface to the PC like SATA or a network interface like 3G WWAN), NTFS formatted hard drives have tested faster on benchmark tests than FAT32 formatted drives. Other factors will be in play, however, including drive technology (HDD vs. SDD, Flash vs. non-Flash, etc.) and file fragmentation (on spinning drives).
While file transfer speed and maximum throughput is limited by the slowest link (usually the hard drive interface to the PC like SATA or a network interface like 3G WWAN), NTFS formatted hard drives have tested faster on benchmark tests than FAT32 formatted drives. Other factors will be in play, however, including drive technology (HDD vs. SDD, Flash vs. non-Flash, etc.) and file fragmentation (on spinning drives).
While your OS usually makes the choice of hard drive format for you ahead of time, you can choose which format when you're re-formatting a drive, particularly an external drive. If you need the drive for a Windows-only environment, NTFS is the best choice. If you need to exchange files (even occasionally) with a non-Windows system like a Mac or Linux box, then FAT32 will give you less agita, as long as your file sizes are smaller than 4GB.