The possibilities of storing and accessing information located on modern digital media are determined not only by the characteristics of the media themselves, but also by the parameters of the file systems created on them. One of the important parameters of the file systems used by the Windows operating system is the cluster size. The larger the cluster, the more efficiently small files are read, but the less efficiently the disk space is used. Sometimes it makes sense to change the cluster size.
Necessary
- - any medium with sufficient capacity to store data;
- - administrative rights.
Instructions
Step 1
Create a temporary directory on the storage medium for storing data from the disk, on which the cluster will be resized. Use any convenient Windows file manager or explorer.
Step 2
Copy all important data from the disk to be modified to the file system to the backup media. To do this, in the file manager, open the newly created temporary directory on one of the panels, and the selected disk on the other. Highlight directories with important data. Give the command to copy the files. Wait for the end of the copying process.
If there is no file manager, open the window of the folder of the media from which you want to copy the data. To do this, double-click on the "My Computer" icon located on the desktop or in the "Start" menu, in the window that appears, click on the icon of the required storage medium. In the folder window, select the directories with the mouse and click on the "Copy selected objects" link in the "Tasks for files and folders" group. In the appeared dialog "Copy elements" find and select the temporary directory, press the button "Copy".
Step 3
Start command processor cmd. To do this, click on the "Start" button and select "Run" from the menu that appears. In the Run Program dialog, enter the string "cmd" in the text box. Click OK.
Step 4
Check out the help for the format command, select the formatting options. In the shell window, enter the command:
format /?
Hit Enter. Read the displayed text. Use the scroll bar to scroll through the contents of the window. Select your preferred file system and the cluster size that is allowed for it.
Step 5
Resize the disk file system cluster by formatting it. Enter a command like this in the shell window:
format / FS: / A:
As a parameter, specify the letter of the drive to be formatted followed by a colon. Replace the marker with one of the values: fat, fat32 or ntfs. Instead, enter a number indicating the future size of the cluster (the possible values were inferred in the previous step). So, to create an NTFS file system on disk D with a cluster size of 8192 bytes, enter the command:
format D: / FS: ntfs / A: 8192
Next press Enter, type the current disklabel and press Enter again, type Y and press Enter again. If you are prompted to force unmount the volume, type Y again and press Enter. Wait for the formatting to finish.
Step 6
Transfer the data previously saved in the temporary folder to the newly formatted media with the resized cluster. Follow the steps similar to those described in the second step.
Step 7
Delete the temporary folder. Take advantage of the capabilities of the file manager or explorer.
