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Allocation Unit Size for an External SSD Drive

Bertrand3765 Posted messages 30 Status Membre -  
flo88 Posted messages 28659 Registration date   Status Contributeur Last intervention   -

Hello,

I have a 2GB external hard drive where I want to store videos.

The files are mostly between 2 and 5GB.

What should be the allocation unit size for exFAT?

Some of my files have lost metadata (when copying from another non-SSD hard drive).

All my files on the other hard drives have minimal metadata.

What is happening?

Thank you to anyone who can help me.

3 réponses

Réponse 1 / 3
steph810 Posted messages 1851 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention   154
 

Hello,

unless I'm mistaken, the 2GB external hard drive ??? video files 2GB to 5GB, is there a potential space issue or a typo?
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Bertrand3765 Posted messages 30 Status Membre
 

Hello,

No, that's right.

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flo88 Posted messages 28659 Registration date   Status Contributeur Last intervention   5 158 > Bertrand3765 Posted messages 30 Status Membre
 

Hello

Except that it's impossible, steph810 is right, the disk actually has about 2 TB.

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Réponse 2 / 3
jee pee Posted messages 9403 Registration date   Status Modérateur Last intervention   9 948
 

Hello,

ExFAT does not retain file metadata. You should stick to NTFS.
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Bertrand3765 Posted messages 30 Status Membre
 

Hello,

Thank you for your response. I didn't know that.

Fortunately, I didn't have many files. I will soon be able to reformat the hard drive.

What do you recommend for the allocation unit?

Default or a bit more?

According to what I found on the internet, you can use the maximum unit given the size of the files.

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brucine Posted messages 24411 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention   4 105
 

Hello,

Is it that simple?

For FAT32, which can be forced on a large drive, I don’t know; I haven’t checked, if the answer is different and we refuse NTFS for some reason (for example, MacOS compatibility), we would just need to split anything over 4 GB in two (which I do to read on the drive connected to my TNT recorder that won’t accept anything else).

It seems to me that the "volatile" metadata involved are the usual Windows attributes, but if a photo or video contains Exif data, they are stored directly regardless of the format and can be hidden there; in that case, it would be necessary to use a dedicated utility to view them.

The need to keep this Exif data on an internal or external drive escapes me; isn’t it enough to properly describe the filename? But everyone has their own ways.

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Réponse 3 / 3
flo88 Posted messages 28659 Registration date   Status Contributeur Last intervention   Ambassadeur 5 158
 

According to what I found on the internet, we can use the maximum unit considering the size of the files.

I think you're talking about the cluster size during formatting... by default.

In any case, it has no impact on an SSD; the cluster size no longer affects modern systems and only concerns spinning disks.
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brucine Posted messages 24411 Registration date   Status Membre Last intervention   4 105
 

Hello,

In any case, regarding large files, the size of the clusters only has a potential influence on the hypothetical reading speed of these files, not much on the disk space they occupy.

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Bertrand3765 Posted messages 30 Status Membre
 

Hello,

Thank you for your comment.

I had a feeling about that.

My SSD helps me free up space on the other hard drives that are full.

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Bertrand3765 Posted messages 30 Status Membre
 

Hello,

Yes, that's the cluster size.

I reformatted my hard drive, but even after changing the size, the default value is still saved.

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flo88 Posted messages 28659 Registration date   Status Contributeur Last intervention   5 158 > Bertrand3765 Posted messages 30 Status Membre
 

It's normal with an SSD.

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