formatting a 256 and a 512 cf card

[jasb]

Hello

does anybody know when formatting a 256mb cf card(for tomtom3 map storage) what is the best type...fat 16 or fat 32?? and what should the cluster size be? and the same for a 512mb cf card

I also have a 256 sd card which i use mainly for mp3s

Any help is gratefully received. :D

[kartracer]

For disks (or cards) up to 512MB it is probably best to use FAT16 for the sake of efficiency. Above this size you should consider FAT32, especially if you have lots of small files.

The generally accepted wisdom is that large clusters are better for map files, but in some tests I did a while back using TomTom2 I got much quicker route calculations with small clusters than with large ones. I suspect the reason is that TT2 does lots of small reads rather than a few large ones and therefore suffers from transferring more data than is strictly required when using large clusters. This might not hold true for TT3.
_________________
Kam

[jasb]

Thanks

Fat 16 it is then.
ive got the choice of 4/8/16/32 cluster size. There is an asterix next to 4kb should i use this?

On a side note if im using another card for films/mp3s should i use the larger 32 size?
thanks again
jasb

[kartracer]

As far as choice of file systems or cluster sizes goes there are really no "right" answers. You have to make a judgement call based upon the size of your files and how you access them. Small clusters mean less wasted and therefore more available storage space if you have lots of small files, larger clusters can mean more efficient access when handling large files.

Based upon my own experience with TT2 I would go with FAT16 and 4KB clusters for TT, but you may want to experiment with larger clusters and do some testing yourself.

For multimedia files I would expect that 32KB clusters would be best, but again you may want to reconsider this if you have lots of very small files.
_________________
Kam

[jasb]

Ill give it a go

cheers
:D

We see you’re using an ad-blocker. We’re fine with that and won’t stop you visiting the site.
Have you considered making a donation towards website running costs?.
Or you could disable your ad-blocker for this site. We think you’ll find our adverts are not overbearing!