Choosing NTFS cluster size and compression for pooled drives

[Nerva]

I'm debating between formatting my drives in 4k clusters (the largest you can use with NTFS compression) vs. 64k clusters (better for all my bluray movie files).   But does the use of pooled drives complicate things?   In particular, for 4k clusters there is a 16TB limit on volumes.   I am curious if there are any issues with pools larger than 16TB if the individual drives use 4k clusters?   Also, I am thinking of using NTFS compression for certain directories (like desktop computer backups) that have very compressible files that are never used -- but in order to do that, I would need to use 4k clusters, and this makes me wonder if there could be issues with compressing files on larger than 16TB pools.

 

I'm guessing the right answer is to use 64k clusters regardless, but I would still like to get a better understanding of what the limitations are when you factor in using DrivePool.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

I partially answered this in a ticket already.

 

First, if you're using GPT (over MBR) then the limitation is moot, as it uses a very different method for the file system.

And most drives that are larger than 2TBs are formatted as GPT as well.

 

As for the Pool itself, it is a virtual drive, so it doesn't matter.

 

 

 

However, the most important question is the content you will be using. If you're only storing large files, then 64k is the best option for you. However, if you're using a mix of a lot of small files and a lot of large files, than 4k is still the best choice.

And I would recommend not mixing and matching. Use all the same cluster size for all of the pooled disks.