Re: OS Block Size - MS Windows NT

Tommy Nobl wrote:
>
> Right, but how can I (or my DBA) determine what the lowest-best value for
> this setting would be under NT. For instance, under VMS, the OS block size
> is (or used to be) 512 bytes (and I think it cannot be changed), so the DB
> block size could be any multiple of that (i.e. 512 x 5 = 2560). I think you
> can set this database parameter however you like, but if you know the OS
> block size, you can set it most efficiently so as little disk space as
> possible is consumed by empty allocation.
>
> Am I making sense?

The default install of NT has a block size (under NTFS) of 512 bytes. However, you can specify a new block size when you reformat the drive. If you are formatting under fat16, the block size is dependant on the drive size - that is, fat16 only recognizes 512mb drives, and some tricks have to be played to let it few larger drives (multiple partitions, and huge blocks sizes - 32k - are usually used). Fat32 gets around this limitation, but there is no support for fat32 filesystems in NT 4.

Cheers,
GC Received on Mon Feb 21 2000 - 19:01:23 CST