>I'm about to move data from an old&creaking NT
server to a F230.
>Iwas aware that moving to the filer would lead to a space
usage
>increase due to the larger block size (4K as against
512bytes for
>standard NTFS)
This is not necessarily the case, and
almost certainly wouldn't be the case for most installations/migrations.
"Standard NTFS" would very *rarely* be using an allocation unit size
of 512 bytes on most modern systems. The way NTFS figures out the default
allocation unit size to use on a particular disk or volume-set is quite simple,
if you can remember the "kilobyte to gigabyte" correlation that
exists. Specifically, NTFS uses an allocation unit size of half a kilobyte on
disks of half a gigabyte or less (rare these days, right? :-)), one kilobyte on
disks of one gigabyte or less, two kilobytes on disks of 2 gigabytes or less,
and 4 kilobytes thereafter. Unless you manually created your NTFS file systems
using something along the lines of a:
C:\> FORMAT d:
/fs:ntfs /a:512
to override the default and force an allocation unit size of
512 bytes, then your NTFS file system will likely be using the same default
allocation unit size as WAFL uses (4Kb).
Also, don't forget the swings-and-roundabouts issues that are normally
associated with small AU sizes. There's a reason that AU sizes generally get
bigger as file system sizes increase. Smallers AU's cause most file systems to
burn more AU's to keep track of the AU's, if you see what I'm saying? :-) It is
often hard at best, and impossible at worst to accurately account for such
matters in application level scripts that just read "visible stuff",
but I don't think that you'll find that WAFL and NTFS are fantastically
different space burners for the vast majority of situations.* If you do,
well.... let me know, *especially* if WAFL proves far superior.... :-)
Keith