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From: swansond@cube05.csus.edu (Dennis Swanson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Getting more out of your Hard Drive
Message-ID: <1991Mar7.103427.26475@csus.edu>
Date: 7 Mar 91 10:34:27 GMT
References: <1991Mar5.052358.25059@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> <1991Mar5.193358.8027@unx2.ucc.okstate.edu> <1991Mar6.140018.5729@nada.kth.se>
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In article <1991Mar6.140018.5729@nada.kth.se> d88-jwa@byse.nada.kth.se (Jon W{tte) writes:
>Notice the "block size". Files are allocated in blocks on the
>disk, and I _think_ that the default value is chosen so that
>the block size won't go over a limit, and double. Perhaps using

According to my Silverlining manual, it's a volume's (or partition's)
maximum size that determines the block size. There's a couple of articles
in the latest installment of the info-mac digest on this topic, specifically
about some poor chap with a gargantuan HD who has found him/herself with a
15K minimum allocation size for files. Would someone who's able shed some
more detailed light on the relationship between maximum volume size and
block size, and maybe provide us with a table showing at what volume sizes
the block size goes from 512K to 1024K, then to the next higher block size,
etc. , or maybe the formula for figuring it out for ourselves? This would
greatly help people with large HD's decide how small to partition to avoid
obscenely large block sizes, and utilize more of their storage capacity.
The Silverlining manual I mentioned before makes a passing reference to a
'allocation bit table', having a fixed size of 32K. I feel therein lies the
answer to my question, but I can't at the moment figure out how to use this
bit of info to construct the table I seek. Anyone?

	Den

   /Dennis M. Swanson --> swansond@csus.edu         /   "He was as calm as a/
  /Macintosh Lab Assistant/Computer Science Student/   Perry Como groupie."/
 /University Computing and Communications Services/       -- Sledge Hammer/
/California State University, Sacramento         /"Harness the Macpower!"/