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- #FORMAT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE WINDOWS 7 ALLOCATION UNIT SIZE HOW TO#
- #FORMAT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE WINDOWS 7 ALLOCATION UNIT SIZE PC#
Step 3: Input diskpart and press Enter to open is short for New Technology File System. Step 2: Type cmd and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to run Command Prompt as administrator. You can also use Command Prompt to format your partition to a certain cluster size.
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Now, open the drop-down menu of Allocation unit size to choose your desired value, check Quick Format and click Start to format the partition. Step 3: In the pop-up window, you can see the current Capacity, File system and Allocation unit size of the partition.
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Step 2: Right-click the partition for which you want to change cluster size, and then choose Format.
#FORMAT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE WINDOWS 7 ALLOCATION UNIT SIZE PC#
Step 1: Double-click This PC to open File Explorer. You can change allocation unit size for a certain partition in File Explorer, which is also a common way to check the cluster size. Thus, you are recommended to back up the partition in advance to avoid data loss. Note: Sometimes, you are unable to change cluster size unless you format the specific partition.
#FORMAT EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE WINDOWS 7 ALLOCATION UNIT SIZE HOW TO#
But how to do it? Here are 3 ways for you. How to Change File Allocation Unit SizeĪfter learning about the reasons why you need to change file allocation unit size, you can try changing it as your needs. Also, the maximum size of a partition could change accordingly if its cluster size is changed.Ĭommonly, 4k is a rather common allocation unit size today, and 64k cluster size is widely used among users who stores big files like game, 3D movie, HD photo, etc. Considering this, many users would like to enlarge the original cluster size. So, you might need to adjust the file allocation unit size according to the size of your files.īesides, if you set a large cluster size for the partition, there will be less blocks to seek for your system, thus improving reading and writing speed overall. On the contrary, if you save large files on a file system with small cluster size, your system performance will be reduced. If you save small files on a file system with large allocation unit size, your disk space will be wasted. Actually, one allocation unit can only store one file, but one file can take up several allocation units. Why do You Need to Change File Allocation Unit SizeĪs mentioned before, your hard disk is organized by Windows file systems based on allocation unit size (cluster size). The default cluster size is depended on file system ( NTFS, FAT or exFAT), the size of partition, and the version of your Windows. If you format a partition (either in Disk Management or Command Prompt) without specifying the allocation unit size, the default allocation unit size will be used. In other words, allocation unit is the smallest unit to save and manage files on disk in Windows. It is a unit of disk space allocation for files and directories as the filesystem allocates contiguous groups of sectors rather than individual disk sectors by default. What is another name for a file allocation unit and what does it mean?Īnother name for a file allocation unit is cluster. However, if needed, you can also choose another value from its drop-down menu. Besides, you might have noticed that there is another item called Allocation unit size.īy default, the value of allocation unit size is set to Default, and you don’t have to change it in most cases.
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