A storage cluster (hard drive, for example) is the minimum amount of disk space on which files can be placed. Windows file systems are based on clusters of contiguous sectors. The issue of choosing the cluster size is relevant when formatting a hard disk.
Instructions
Step 1
Open "My Computer", right-click on the icon of the hard drive you want to format. Select the "Format" command. In the window that opens, you need to select the file system, and also set the cluster size that will be used by this disk.
Step 2
If you have Windows 7 or Windows XP installed and the NTFS file system is used, the choice of cluster size varies between 512 bytes and 64 kilobytes. If you are using the FAT file system, then there is no choice, only one option is available - 64 kilobytes. In the FAT32 file system, you can choose between 1024 bytes and 32 kilobytes. The widest range of cluster sizes is supported by the exFAT file system, from 512 bytes to 32 megabytes.
Step 3
Determine which cluster size to use when formatting the hard drive. This will depend on the files that will be stored on a USB flash drive or hard drive. If it will contain small files, select a smaller cluster size. If the disk is intended for storing video files, music, and other large files, choosing a larger cluster size will be optimal.
Step 4
When choosing a cluster size, keep in mind that it represents the minimum amount of space that is allocated on disk. For example, if the cluster size is 512 bytes, and the file copied to it weighs 1 byte, then it will occupy all 512 bytes for storage. Therefore, a large number of small files together will take up less space on a disk with a smaller cluster size. From another point of view, the larger the cluster, the faster the write and read operations will occur. For the disk to which you are going to copy only movies, select the maximum cluster size, and for the USB flash drive intended for working with documents, set its minimum size.
