Description of Default Cluster Sizes for FAT32 File System

ID: Q192322

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows 98
Microsoft Windows 95 OEM Service Release versions 2, 2.1, 2.5

SUMMARY

This article lists the default cluster sizes for drives using the FAT32 file system. The FAT32 file system uses smaller default cluster sizes than the FAT16 file system, resulting in a more efficient file allocation system and the conservation of drive space.

MORE INFORMATION

The following tables lists the default cluster sizes used by the FAT32 file system.


   Partition size           Cluster size
   -------------------------------------
   512 MB to 8,191 MB          4 KB
   8,192 MB to 16,383 MB       8 KB
   16,384 MB to 32,767 MB     16 KB
   Larger than 32,768 MB      32 KB

Note that the FAT32 file system does not support drives smaller than 512 MB.

REFERENCES

For more information about the FAT32 file system, see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

ARTICLE-ID: Q154997
TITLE : Description of FAT32 File System

ARTICLE-ID: Q69912
TITLE : MS-DOS Partitioning Summary

Keywords : osr2 win95 win98 winfat32
Version : WINDOWS:95
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbinfo