Can I control the block size of my hard drive?
- Thread starter rharder
- Start date
Arden
Where mah "any" keys at?
Disk Utility won't say anything about block size because Apple's default is 4 KB. (By block size I presume you mean the size of each subpartition, whereby up to 4 K of a file are stored in 1 block, then next 4 K in another, and so on... in other words, the reason for having HFS and HFS+.) If you want a large block size, reformat the drive for HFS (not plus or extended or whatever) because your drive will be formatted with 65,536 (or so) blocks, meaning that the size is determined by the drive's capacity. (On a 4 GB hard drive, the HFS block size is 64 K. On your Firewire drive, which is sure to be much larger, the block size will be much larger as well.)
The only problem I can see is that I don't know how well X likes HFS. I don't think it's good to boot into 10.2 from an HFS drive, but I really don't know about that at all. And you said it's exclusively for storing video files, so you wouldn't have to boot from it (unless something goes horribly wrong... but that's another topic). A couple ways to change your block size: reformat with Silverlining Pro (not sure where to find it anymore or what the price is) or use Alsoft Plus Maker or Plus Maximizer to set your HFS+ drive to the desired block size.
I actually don't see the need for larger block size when working with video because you will have less wasted space with a smaller block size, even if fragmentation may be a little worse (though this is fixable). When a file overflows, you will be left with less space if you have smaller block sizes, though this is a relatively low concern when working with large video files. (If you wanted to run a website or database off the Firewire drive, which contain lots of little files, then I'd tell you to try to make your block sizes the smallest possible.)
The only problem I can see is that I don't know how well X likes HFS. I don't think it's good to boot into 10.2 from an HFS drive, but I really don't know about that at all. And you said it's exclusively for storing video files, so you wouldn't have to boot from it (unless something goes horribly wrong... but that's another topic). A couple ways to change your block size: reformat with Silverlining Pro (not sure where to find it anymore or what the price is) or use Alsoft Plus Maker or Plus Maximizer to set your HFS+ drive to the desired block size.
I actually don't see the need for larger block size when working with video because you will have less wasted space with a smaller block size, even if fragmentation may be a little worse (though this is fixable). When a file overflows, you will be left with less space if you have smaller block sizes, though this is a relatively low concern when working with large video files. (If you wanted to run a website or database off the Firewire drive, which contain lots of little files, then I'd tell you to try to make your block sizes the smallest possible.)
I think that you will lose so much in backwards compatibility that the best will be to format it in HFS+. OSX's support for HFS is growing scarce and HFS+ is a bit faster than HFS in some places, not to mention that HFS may have problems in newer comm protocols (USB 2.0 and Firewire). All you really will lose is some physical space due to HFS+'s directory info file that is some megs bigger than HFS's. But I think that's all that is to it.
-clayshima
-clayshima