Whats this gonna do to my proformance?

[Over Clocked]

Hey guys! I have an KT7-RAID mobo with a raid array composed of 4 IBM 30gig ATA-100 hard drives. I first made the raid array under the 16k block size like apushardware.com said to do, but when I went to format the hard drives (the array) using the "format c: /z:32" (following apus hardware's directions)it said my hard drive was too big. I ended up making the array with the (default) 64k block size and just doing a standard format "format c:". Any body know what or how this will affect anything?? Anybody know what the block size means in lamens terms?

Thanks Guys!

[daveleau]

I am not 100% sure, but I believe the smaller block size equates to faster seek times but less available space.
Dave

[seti]

Haha, I thought it was the opposite...larger clusters = faster at the expense of wasted space.

Who knows? someone around here must.

I do know 64k clusters are huge. Mine are 8k. I couldn't use 64k clusters on my partion size, but if I used 32k on my 15gb partition I'd be giving up roughly 1gb of wasted space, according to Partion Magic, and over 2gb with 64k.

[This message has been edited by seti (edited 11-25-2000).]

[djurom]

Data being written on HDD is separated into smaller blocks (clusters). One cluster with smaller size presents lesser wasted space with a cost of performance. Mine is 8k and I think that's optimal for 4-8GB partition with optimal space used. 64k is about the same in performance as 32 but with 100% more wasted space according to Partition Magic.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I think that smaller cluster size tends to fragment more than larger size. 512 opposing to 2-4K

[Over Clocked]

Looking from my computer, I have 114.4 gigs of hard drive space (One partition of 28.6 (Windows 2K), the other of 85.8(Win 98se)). I have however, 4 30.7 gig hard drives, that would equal 122.8, so I guess I am losing 8.4gigs!? I want to have very good proformance. I know losing 8 gigs seems like alot... But I've got 114gig so I don't know if that really matters to much. I am not going to be losing more space as I install other things am I? Well what should I do? I am planing on using ghost to make a backup and then change the cluster size (if its going to be better), will this work ok? Oh and what about formating? Do I need to specify a cluster size? What cluster size does it use when you just type in "format c:" ?

Thanks

[djurom]

8GB doesn't seem to be much.
No, you will not loose any more space. Those 8gigs are calculated on presuming that your all drives are full.