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mansur_mcaFlag for United Arab Emirates

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What is significance of the block size of each 4k and 8k , in Linux operating system

Dear experts,
I bit unclear in the idea on the block size of operating system. What is significance of each block size concept in the operating level? What is benefit having higher block size than lower?
Please elaborate in this respect.


Thanks for all in advance.
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omarfarid
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Hi,

When a file is created it is allocated a block. The file data is written to this block till it is full and then another block is allocated, and so on.

If small (say 1k files) files are created on a file system, then a small block size is better since if the block size is big, you will have less blocks to allocate and hence less files can be created on the file system.

If small files are created on a big block size file system, then space is wasted or the file system will accommodate more than one file in a block (this is called fragmentation) and the overhead will be high in managing such blocks and files.

The block size has impact over the performance of the system.

In general, if you expect to have large number of small files, then have a small block size on the file system. If you expect big files then have a big block size.

Please see

http://www.docs.hp.com/en/B3929-90011/ch05s02.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems
http://www.linfo.org/get_block_size.html
http://www.sunmanagers.org/archives/1999/0242.html
http://www.ixora.com.au/tips/buffered_block_size.htm
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exellent omarfarid ... reacting so soon .
In the modern computing most of the organisations recommanding for 8k rather 4k.  
I am just wondering ,is this irrespective of their requirement how  all widly opting for 8k than 4k.  can you share you  view on this ...

thanks for ur understanding ...
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omarfarid
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i impressed the way that you have answered the query.
experts like you are more valuable for this community . keep this journey going ....  hope we meet in next question
You are welcome :)