Questions about cluster size on NTFS?

[HGeneAnthony]

I have a rather large drive (300GB) and I was wondering what the most efficient means is for partitioning it. I was reading up on cluster size and I read that the smaller cluster sizes are better on space but they are slower. The larger cluster sizes are better on speed but waste more space and you can't use compression. Also I was wondering which is less likely to get fragmented and is it true about compression? Also does Windows offer automatic compression on NTFS volumes? I really don't want it because I feel it would hurt disk performance plus I wonder what problems it can cause in case of corruption. Also is NTFS better on performance on small partitions (under 32GB) than FAT32?

[BertImmenschuh]

"Also is NTFS better on performance on small partitions (under 32GB) than FAT32?"
I've had both formats on Win2000 and WinXP and haven't noticed much difference in performance on HDDs of 40GB and smaller.

Partitioning in WinXP and earlier has to be done either as part of the install routine or by third-party software such as Partition Commander.
www.v-com.com

Probably the best balance between cluster size and performance would be 4KB/4096Bytes.

Over the years and various Operating Sytesms, I found disk compression to affect performance but the faster the CPU the better.

I'd think once a System Volume is compressed you wouldn't have to touch it again, any files added would take on that compression.

Disk Compression is inherently dangerous, loss of even one Byte of data can damage the whole thing making it unretrievable.

I've found it it much better in the short term and long term to upgrade the HDD or add a second HDD. I've gotten away from multi-partitions on HDDs as it is very possible for a hardware problem to cause loss of every partition and the data in them. With the new motherboards having 2 or 4 SATA Channels and 1 or 2 IDE Channels it is quite possible to attach more internal drives than the case has room for. Using External USB drives is an excellent storage solution.