What "allocation unit size" should I use for a drive with a single NTFS partition?

"If you are a ""Standard User"" by Microsoft's definition, you should keep the default 4096 bytes. Basically, the allocation unit size is the block size on your hard drive when it formats NTFS. If you have lots of small files, then it's a good idea to keep the allocation size small so your hard drive space won't be wasted. If you have lots of large files, keeping it higher will increase the system performance by having fewer blocks to seek.
But again, nowadays hard drive capacity is getting higher and higher making small differences by choosing the right allocation size. I suggest you just keep the default.
Also keep in mind that the majority of files are relatively small, larger files are large in size but small in units."

"I am setting up four Seagate ST3000DM001 3TB drives in a RAID 10 configuration.
After reading up on how to format it for the Allocation Unit Size, I found this article: General Guidelines for Improving Operating System Performance.

When configuring drive arrays and logical drives within your hardware drive controller, ensure you match the controller stripe size with the allocation unit size that the volumes will be formatted with. This will ensure disk read and write performance is optimal and offer better overall server performance.

I am using the ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE motherboard's built-in RAID capability from Intel chipset.
Since the Default Stripe size for RAID 10 on the motherboard is 64KB, I am formatting my RAID array using the ""64 kilobytes"" option in Windows.

Anyway, I hope this information I found helps for other people researching for this topic and add more information to it."

"You point out disk usage as video and music. Majority data file sizes then should be 2MB+ for music and 100MB+ for video, some playlist (less then 5% of overall file quantity) of few kB. You point out the device is external USB disk.

The best solution for such specification is exfat(vfat on linux) or NTFS with 64kB block/allocation unit size. Some hints on what file system you should chose:
- xxfat should be used for faster writes and compatibility (ie. you plan/ already use media streaming device for your home/office usage)
- NTFS for security and advanced features. (security is still source of problems for home users - be sure you need it)

Have a fun."

"For spindle based storage, unless you need compression I would be inclined to bump the cluster size to 64k.
The benefits of larger cluster size are less fragmentation over time, less metadata and lower i/o's for the system to manage.
You do get more wastage but now days it would be a very unusual workload to have the majority of your files small enough for this to matter and is offset by the metadata savings.
I would keep the boot drive on 4k, and SSD's probably should be kept on 4k as well."