How do I Defrag NTFS drives with 64K clusters

[wezx]

My Glyph audio drives are formatted NTFS with 64K cluster size and work very well. How am I supposed to defragment them when every defrag program won't work with anything above 4K clusters?

[Nick Driver]

If you have space on another drive, you copy all your stuff to one drive, then back to the other. You may even want to reformat the empty drive while it's empty to ensure a clean filesystem to receive the files.

Yeah it's a lot of work and a hassle, but that's how drives got defragged back in the olden days before defrag utilities came around.

[+Erik.+]

every defrag program? like what?

O&O defrag and diskeeper should do it.

[+Erik.+]

interesting, nick!

[wezx]

Haven't tried O&O, but Diskeeper will not defrag over 4k

[wezx]

OK here's the scoop...according to Microsoft, drives with ntfs clusters larger than 4k CANNOT be defragged. I've read MANY posts on this forum, mainly from "Dark Phader" recommending 64K clusters which is what I did...now I can't defrag my drives...great, perhaps people should clarify their advice before posting it.

[nakedjackson]

you don't know who is posting, so don't take everything for gospel that you read in any forums.

P.S. Gospel is stupid

[Erik Nygaard]

Originally posted by wezx:
OK here's the scoop...according to Microsoft, drives with ntfs clusters larger than 4k CANNOT be defragged. I've read MANY posts on this forum, mainly from "Dark Phader" recommending 64K clusters which is what I did...now I can't defrag my drives...great, perhaps people should clarify their advice before posting it.
Diskkeeper-7 will defrag NTFS up to 64k on WinXP. However this is not possible on NT/2000. http://www1.execsoft.com/Diskeeper-Users-Guide70.pdf

[+Erik.+]

Originally posted by wezx:
OK here's the scoop...according to Microsoft, drives with ntfs clusters larger than 4k CANNOT be defragged. I've read MANY posts on this forum, mainly from "Dark Phader" recommending 64K clusters which is what I did...now I can't defrag my drives...great, perhaps people should clarify their advice before posting it.

no one is responsible for making sure you have a 100% working system. If it won't defrag for you at 64k then convert it back.

If you were also taking the good advice of others from this forum then you would have also come to the conclusion that FAT32 32K clusters is safer after much heated debate.

[wezx]

I read the entire strings concerning fat32 vs. ntfs, including the ridiculous bickering with djatwork. If you think there was any consensus as to which is better, I beg to differ. There were more opinions swirling around than I could count. "Dark Phader", as an example, who seems to know his ballgame, stated that NTFS is better, if you are not working backwards with 98. The 64k clusters work great for me, however, it would of been nice to know that 64k clusters can't be defragged in 2000. Obviously I don't just take any advice I see. The advice given seemed to be from reputable sources. OF COURSE Fat32 at 32K will be better than NTFS at 4k, that's the whole reason for running NTFS (an obviously more stable format) at 64k.

[Bops2000]

Take my wife Please...

I don't understand this cluster setting thing- nor do I need to.

It does seem to me that by sinply using the standard windows format routines, you would be ok.

I once bought a Holley Quadrajet for my 350 vega for faster fuel flow, and found that the Rochester Quadrajet, (chevy original equipment), worked much better. I just wired the secondary butterflies to conserve gas and 'overclocked' the distributer.

I think we get so 'deep' in the tweaking we lose the goal. Tweaking or even chasing the Bite is fun, as I am a lil guilty, (chasing milliseconds, jeepers!). I am also guilty of saying stuff like "I Like To Do this, or use This", and most of the folks here realize I am just messin around or thinkin' out loud.

From an IT standpoint, in Win 2000, nft is a bit more secure, in your case at 64 bit -too secure.

I would do what Saint NICK says regroup, but that alone is just an opinion.

a sincere good luck
Bops

[wezx]

BTW, I have no intention of going back to FAT32 because I do a lot of video work and I don't feel like splitting files into 4gb blocks. FAT32 certainly isn't "better" for video work!