Is there a program that will …

analyse a USB stick, external hard drive or whatever, and tell you if it will work more efficiently (less wasted / slack space) if you format it to multiples of 2, or 4KB cluster sizes?

I have a small drive MP3 player, dedicated to MP3's. Small in size, and very convenient, and nearly full at 4KB clusters. :cry Most MP3 tracks are either less than 2KB, or slightly more than 4KB. If I was to format to multiples of 2KB I would snag the smaller ones, (they would use 1 x 2 KB instead of 1 x 4KB) and, with a multiple of 2KB, the ones that are slightly bigger than 4KB would waste less space. They would use 3 x 2KB, instead of 2 x 4 KB for example.

Interested to know if anyone else has attempted this. :-D Bazza

 

Maybe my brain is on backwards today, but arent you mixing KB and MB here?
I'm not an expert on the area, but I dont think you'll need an analysing program to find the answer here. Smaller cluster size means less space wasted. Bigger cluster size means better performance in reading (and writing?) of data.
I have no idea how big the practical difference is, so it would be great if you could report back if you chose to test it.

 

You are correct, Sharagoz. Should be megabytes (MB) for MP3's. Cluster sizes are in KB. Damn, so I probably won't be much better off. :cry Thanks. Bazza

===