cluster size for video HDD?

megabit wrote on 5/14/2008, 11:13 PM

I'm configuring a new external storage to hold mxf clips ONLY (plus some stuff that Vegas will inevitably write to it when editing from it, like the audio peaks files).

Since the clips are usually multi-gigabyte in size, which cluster size would be optimal? I'd think a one considerably greater than the NTFS default. Any opinions on that?

PS. Of course the temp and render folders and alike will be held elsewhere.

Comments

jetdv wrote on 5/15/2008, 5:34 AM

I lean toward staying at the default size. Depending on the number of files you have, you could be wasting considerably more space with a larger size.

John_Cline wrote on 5/15/2008, 6:18 AM

I tried messing with NTFS cluster size some time ago, 32k clusters didn't improve the transfer rate of video files much, if at all, and 64k clusters actually slowed it down. I'd stay with the default.

johnmeyer wrote on 5/15/2008, 7:40 AM

The other reason to stay with the default is that some disk utilities can get "confused" with non-standard cluster sizes.

The one thing you DO want to make sure is that you don't somehow get smaller cluster sizes than the XP default. I ran into this back in the early days of XP where people were upgrading recently purchased computers from WinME or Win98 to XP. If they decided to convert to NTFS, the Windows conversion software did not update the cluster size and they were stuck with the old size. I actually had this on the computer I'm still using (5.5 years old). It came with FAT32 for the main drive. I converted to NTFS, but wasn't impressed with the performance. After a lot of reading, I tested the cluster size, and I think it was either 4K or 8K -- really small. I found a utility that could re-do the cluster size without re-formatting. Like Ed and John, I experimented, but found the default provided the best solution.

Laurence wrote on 5/15/2008, 1:32 PM

Would the same thing apply towards memory cards? I have a 32GB Transcend CF card that I use with my HVR-Z7. Right now I have it formatted with the biggest possible cluster size since I only expect to do a couple of hundred large files at the most. Should I just stick with standard default sizes on that as well?

johnmeyer wrote on 5/15/2008, 2:50 PM

I know quite a bit about disk structure, but have never paid any attention to memory cards. I didn't realize they used a block structure. Not sure why they'd need to since they don't have the mechanical and rotational issues that lead to many of the weird things with hard discs and optical media.

Absent any information, I always opt for the default ... perhaps someone that really knows can provide a better answer.