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Path: utzoo!watmath!watdcsu!rsellens
From: rsellens@watdcsu.UUCP (Rick Sellens - Mech. Eng.)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Hard disk overhead?
Message-ID: <862@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Jan-85 10:16:55 EST
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.862
Posted: Tue Jan 22 10:16:55 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 23-Jan-85 05:07:35 EST
References: <10800003@uiucdcsp.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 18

Re: 7MB to store 3MB of files

Under DOS 2.0 the hard disk is allocated in 4K blocks. This means that
no matter how small a file is, it will still take up 4K of disk space.
The dir command reports the logical length of the file, not the amount
of disk space allocated to it.

The result is that each file averages about 2K of unused, but allocated
space. The situation is far worse if you have many small files. (like
individual c function source code) I hear that DOS 3.0 allows you to
vary the block size when you format a hard disk, so you can decide what
is best for your own system.


Rick Sellens
UUCP:  watmath!watdcsu!rsellens
CSNET: rsellens%watdcsu@waterloo.csnet
ARPA:  rsellens%watdcsu%waterloo.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa