I have a question about Why do even the smallest files take up so much disk space?:

How is partitioning going to help?

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The reference doesn't say so but it is obviously outdated and directed at hard drives set up under FAT16 (aka FAT), which has very large cluster size increases with increasing partition (or drive) size. If your drive C: is currently larger than about 2 GB you don't have FAT16, you have FAT32 which builds in cluster size much, much slower as partition size increases.

Therefore, under FAT32, partitioning to reduce wasted space is not anyway near the FAT16 problem until you have partitions greater than about 8 GB. For a partition above about 16 GB you should definitely consider repartitioning.

More info: Comparison of FAT16 and FAT32 File Systems.

Bob Sturtevant  http://home.adelphia.net/~bobstur/
Please reply in the forum and let us know.

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Go here.

http://www.howstuffworks.com/hard-disk.htm





On Sunday, September 1, 2002 at 10:27 am, Il wrote:
>I have a question about Why 
>do even the smallest files take up so much disk space?:

>
>How is partitioning going to help?
>
>

[Reply or follow-up to this message]

On Sunday, September 1, 2002 at 10:27 am, Il wrote:
>I have a question about Why
>do even the smallest files take up so much disk space?:

>
>How is partitioning going to help? Well if you repartition your hard drive into smaller slzes... say 1000MB partitions (I know it's small... drives me nuts too) Then you'll have some nice small cluster sizes... Wohoo! Yeehaw... Which means small text files (like cookies) take up less space... And small HTML docs, teeny jpg files... etc... Hey... What about making a 1000MB IExplorer/text files cache for small notes and IE files... And maybe your favorites folder... those things are teeny and the biggest waste of space you've ever seen. 32MB for a 100 byte file... AAAAHHHH! Maybe netscape would be a good download for ya too! :) Now issue two... Why can't two partitions be overlayed... I mean it should be simple enough to write a program to save all files under 16 K to one partition while all files over 16 K go on another...Then have the directory listings added to each other. (Don't forget to make allowances for When the file was updated and moved from below 16k to above 16k (16k exactly should go in the above 16k category... :) For simplicity's sake!!!! First the file to be moved is marked (Date changed to real date - 50 years... when was the last time you saw a 53 on a date... that outta be an OK trick for about 10 or 20 years to come! or... something else) Then the new file on the other hard drive is saved and verified (if desired) and then the old file is deleted. Dual partition filing system (C) Me NOW :) I hereby license permission to use it under the condition that I share all copyrights and that the software is written for linux first (if possible)... I like free stuff Oh and Redhat can just have the idea... if they drop 5 megs off their next release... getting too large for my HD... I got a lame tiny hard drive..) It kinda gets rediculous when a 1.7 gig hard drive turns into 600 megs worth of a zip file (the entire windows directory being only 350 of that) AAAACCCCKKKKK! Although I'm betting most of the system files aren't in there. Anyway if you have the time and the inclination make a few partitions... Check out fat16, fat32, and NTFS. Oh and fat12 if you think you can use that few entries... I recommend 1 partition for text files (under 1 gig) and another for huge video/mp3/zip files, and another for installation of programs... which have both.

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What is your question?


On Saturday, November 16, 2002 at 7:59 pm, Temporal wrote:
>On Sunday, September 1, 2002 at 10:27 am, Il wrote:
>I have a question about Why
>do even the smallest files take up so much disk space?:

>
>How is partitioning going to help?
>Well if you repartition your hard drive into smaller slzes... say 1000MB partitions
>(I know it's small... drives me nuts too) Then you'll have some nice small cluster
>sizes... Wohoo! Yeehaw... Which means small text files (like cookies) take up less
>space... And small HTML docs, teeny jpg files... etc... Hey... What about making
>a 1000MB IExplorer/text files cache for small notes and IE files... And maybe your
>favorites folder... those things are teeny and the biggest waste of space you've
>ever seen. 32MB for a 100 byte file... AAAAHHHH! Maybe netscape would be a good download
>for ya too! :)
>
>Now issue two... Why can't two partitions be overlayed... I mean it should be simple
>enough to write a program to save all files under 16 K to one partition while all
>files over 16 K go on another...Then have the directory listings added to each other.
>(Don't forget to make allowances for When the file was updated and moved from below
>16k to above 16k (16k exactly should go in the above 16k category... :) For simplicity's
>sake!!!! First the file to be moved is marked (Date changed to real date - 50 years...
>when was the last time you saw a 53 on a date... that outta be an OK trick for about
>10 or 20 years to come! or... something else) Then the new file on the other hard
>drive is saved and verified (if desired) and then the old file is deleted. Dual partition
>filing system (C) Me NOW :) I hereby license permission to use it under the condition
>that I share all copyrights and that the software is written for linux first (if
>possible)... I like free stuff Oh and Redhat can just have the idea... if they drop
>5 megs off their next release... getting too large for my HD... I got a lame tiny
>hard drive..) It kinda gets rediculous when a 1.7 gig hard drive turns into 600 megs
>worth of a zip file (the entire windows directory being only 350 of that) AAAACCCCKKKKK!
>Although I'm betting most of the system files aren't in there. Anyway if you have
>the time and the inclination make a few partitions... Check out fat16, fat32, and
>NTFS. Oh and fat12 if you think you can use that few entries... I recommend 1 partition
>for text files (under 1 gig) and another for huge video/mp3/zip files, and another
>for installation of programs... which have both.

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According to the definition of slack space, there are some hard disk space not used up in the allocated clusters. For example, one file I searched up using dir /v/p showed a file that is 266 bytes big actually used 16 clusters (or 16384 bytes) of space. I think I know why, but can't explain :(

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