- #Format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size how to
- #Format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size movie
- #Format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size software
- #Format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size Pc
(Oddly, not even the media players on all Blu-Ray players support M2TS.)
#Format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size software
While you won’t have a problem running Blu-Ray (M2TS) format videos on a PS4 or Xbox One, the software on built-in TV media players may not support them, and the media players on DVD players almost certainly won’t.
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With Blu-Ray it can get more complicated. The majority of media players in TVs and on games consoles these days will have no problem supporting the default DVD file format (MPEG-2), so you’re covered there without any need for video conversion.
#Format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size movie
Seeing as you’ll have very few small files on your movie hard drive anyway (apart from subtitle files, maybe), I recommend going with the biggest allocation unit size possible. On the flip side, the bigger the cluster, the less clusters your hard drive needs to search, so larger clusters technically mean faster file-reading and better performance, particularly with big Blu-Ray quality movies. A 2MB file in a 2MB cluster is much less wasteful than a 2MB file in a 32MB cluster where you effectively waste 30MB of hard drive space.) If you’re dealing with small files, then a 2000 to 4000kb cluster size is better because if the files are smaller than those sizes, less space is wasted per cluster. Allocation units are the same thing as clusters, and each file on your hard drive takes up a certain number of these clusters depending on the file size.
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What is allocation unit size, or AUS, I hear you asking. Here you’ll be presented with a number of options, but the ones we’re focusing on are “File System,” which you want to change to exFAT, and “Allocation unit size.” Plug your external hard drive into your PC, go to “This PC,” then right-click it under “Devices and drives” and click “Format.” So let’s format that hard drive to something more universal. This builds on the old FAT32 format, and its key advantage is that it doesn’t have the restrictive 3GB file size limits of its predecessor (which is crucial if you have a collection of HD-quality/Blu-Ray movies). My recommendation is to format your external HDD into the exFAT format.
#Format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size Pc
NTFS is great when you’re using it exclusively with your PC as it has a number of handy security features, no file size limits and so on.
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In most cases these devices are not compatible with the NTFS file format. If you’re preparing a dedicated movie hard drive, then you’ll probably want to hook it up to your TV, DVD/Blu-Ray player or games console.
![format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size](https://www.partitionwizard.com/images/uploads/articles/2019/03/fat32-formatter/fat32-formatter-7.png)
Here’s everything you need to know to prepare the perfect external hard disk for storing movies. Because of this, you could theoretically use larger allocation unit sizes without the performance hit.Sure, but there are quite a few variables to consider, such as what the best hard drive format is for compatibility with the greatest number of devices, allocation unit sizes, and what the best video format is to strike a perfect balance between compatibility and video quality. Should You Use Different Sizes for SSD or Hard Drives?Īs mentioned above, fragmentation doesn’t present the same problems on an SSD as it does a hard disk. So when setting allocation unit size, always scan the given drive or partition and figure out what’s best for that specific one. There are few modern-day scenarios where you’re going to be working with files under 1KB, and you’re just going to slow down your drive’s reading of larger files. There aren’t many scenarios in which it’s recommended to make the allocation unit size smaller than the default.
#Format external hard drive windows 7 allocation unit size how to
Try to make your allocation unit size just under the size of your music and movie files.Īlso read: How to Reformat an External Hard Drive Without Losing Your Data If you have a drive dedicated to movies, images and music, then that changes things, as image and music files are much smaller than movies.