I want to format and set a single partition in an external hard drive with GParted (Ubuntu 12.04) and would like to set the Allocation Unit Size. I don't see any options to do this with GParted. Is there a way to set AUS in Ubuntu?
1 Answer
No, none of the GUI tools can do that. Partitioning works perfectly with those tools also standard formatting work like a charm but for really advanced options you only have the commandline tools.
Standard on Linux is mk2fs for building (formatting) ext2/3/4 filesystems. The amount of options is quite large, including options for blocksize (AUS), journalling, inodesize, presets, superblocks, trim/discard etc. etc. etc.
Use the command mkntfs for building (formatting) NTFS filesystem.
Again, a lot of options are possible here.
Type man mkntfs for an explanation how to use it.
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my target is to format an external hard drive in NTFS filesystem, and since it will be used mostly for video files I want to set the unit size (blocksize) to be at least 4096KB (at the moment is 512/512 bytes). Could you please type the command I should use or give me a link to sources I can look for it there? Thank you!– venta7Nov 4, 2013 at 9:30
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I updated the answer a bit. I think it is best if you first try to figure it out yourself a bit (good to get yourself some hands on experience) if you can't get it to work after some experimenting you can always show the commandline you used and I will take a look at it. :-) good luck– thomNov 4, 2013 at 13:58
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you might take look at this blog.onetechnical.com/2009/06/09/format-an-ntfs-drive-in-ubuntu– thomNov 4, 2013 at 14:22
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Thanks for the tip, I've read the manual at Ubuntu manuals and executed the following:
mkntfs -c 65536 /dev/sdc1
there are few questions that are bugging me: What are the best practices of formatting NTFS partition - I haven't choose fast formatting and it's quite slow (it's running 5min now and it's still on 7%). I haven't choose compression, should I select it? And there is a note thatWindows cannot use compression when the cluster size is larger than 4096 bytes
- Will I have any problems with Windows?– venta7Nov 4, 2013 at 18:42 -
I am not Windows guru but I'll try to answer :-) You won't get any benefit from compressing (video is already heavily compressed) a non-quick format can take up to several hours (as described in the article). I cant predict problems (if I could I would be a billionaire ;-) but I think that the best practice is to run windows and do a filesystemcheck after you formatted the disk. You are doing well, no worries :-)– thomNov 4, 2013 at 18:51