Hacking Recommended allocation unit size

[boy_silip]

I just wanna know your opinion on what value will i go when formatting my 2gbkingston(j).
thanks in advance

 

[ozzymud]

Not being tooo big on knowledge for allocation tables... the smaller the cluster size, the less "slack" space on the drive. A 5k file uses 5k of space with 1k clusters, the same 5k files uses 8k on a 4k cluster drive. But the majority of files on a DS are not wasteful, 512k saves, 8/16/32/64MB roms (unless trimmed).

In computers, this leads to a performance trade-off... more fragmentation. That said, i wouldn't assume fragmentation is a major issue on DS carts, the bigger majority of the files are only read from (the roms). Dunno if this next assumption is correct, but i assume the sav files are created and pre-allocate whatever size they are, so after initial creation they shouldn't fragment. (someone correct me here maybe?)

so smaller cluster results in more space wasted for the FAT... but even at 1k... 8MB aint much, and unless carts DO fragment and my logic is wrong... smaller clusters would be better. (someone enlighten me on .sav fragging?)

Transflash isn't bothered by read/write heads and seek time either, so fragmentation is not a slow down. Flash cards incorporate "wear leveling", which would make a defragmented drive instantly fragmented again after use.