A hard disk sector is the smallest in most cases 512 bytes of space that has been designed so that softwares can access them. A group of these small spaces can be referred to as clusters or allocation units.
A cluster can be defined as a group of sectors. The range can vary depending on the capacity of the Hard disk. For instance an 80GB of Hard disk volume will have more clusters than the one with a 40 GB one.
This means that the number of clusters is determined by the volume of the hard disk with higher capacity of the disk volume using larger cluster sizes and with small volumes (disk sizes) resulting in smaller clusters. In most cases the range of clusters ranges in size from 4 sectors or 2,048 bytes (512*4) to 64 sectors or 32,768 bytes (64*512).
To increase the efficiency of hard disk, the designers made the smallest unit that can be allocated to a file as clusters. This therefore means that to increase the efficiency of the hard disk, cluster size becomes a consideration in defining a hard disk thus ensuring a high efficiency of the disk.
However if not chosen properly, then a large cluster can eventually mean a lot of wasted space which eventually can decrease the efficiency. Therefore special attention is given to the cluster size to increase the efficiency
.
A cluster can be defined as a group of sectors. The range can vary depending on the capacity of the Hard disk. For instance an 80GB of Hard disk volume will have more clusters than the one with a 40 GB one.
This means that the number of clusters is determined by the volume of the hard disk with higher capacity of the disk volume using larger cluster sizes and with small volumes (disk sizes) resulting in smaller clusters. In most cases the range of clusters ranges in size from 4 sectors or 2,048 bytes (512*4) to 64 sectors or 32,768 bytes (64*512).
To increase the efficiency of hard disk, the designers made the smallest unit that can be allocated to a file as clusters. This therefore means that to increase the efficiency of the hard disk, cluster size becomes a consideration in defining a hard disk thus ensuring a high efficiency of the disk.
However if not chosen properly, then a large cluster can eventually mean a lot of wasted space which eventually can decrease the efficiency. Therefore special attention is given to the cluster size to increase the efficiency
.
