Winblows XP FAT size and memory usage

[seer]

The M$ way! M$ tells you: buy more RAM!

Well, having run XP in 256, 512 and 1Gb systems, I can safely say 1Gb is where XP is most comfortable in. I was tempted to get another 1Gb but decided against it. 1GB physical RAM and a 768MB pagefile are enough for most games an apps for a year orso.. (Hello longhorn.. ;-))

Not sure about the question.

Using FAT with XP is a bit weird, formatting the drive during setup as NTFS (quick format is enough) should give the best results. The default settings are ok. No need to play with them.

Just make sure you setup the pagefile correctly. Forget the 2.5 or 3 times RAM rule, it's bogus and at best used for Win3.x of Win98 with 16MB ram. What's the best pagefile size ? Depends on the usage..

Also turn of the Bubbly look of XP, but not just by sellecting the classic look. If you right click my computer then sellect properties and go to the advanced tab, then sellect "performance"and turn off as many unneeded candy effects as needed (fade in and fade out). Gives a nice boost.

There are many tweaks to boost XP performance. Some work, some don't. Some need more RAM to be of any effect. Like TweakXP or TuneUp Utilities 2004 but user beware.... (IIRC they also offer Filesystem boost tweaks)

[seer]

but my main question was how to set the partiton size and cluster size in order to tune RAM usage

Partition size is IMHO a personal preference and hardly has an effect on "performance" (IMHO and experience).

I would leave the cluster size to the OS but have a look at these links.

http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/file/ntfs/archCluster-c.html
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/search.php?searchid=462590
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=4597

Personally, I hardly ever partition my drives. At the moment, I have a 60Gb, a 120Gb and a 200Gb disk. Only the 60 GB is split because I wanted a FAT drive storage that would be accesable with a MS-DOS bootdisk. (I also use it for my "temp" files, the 60 GB is my boot drive but has only a Windows install for rescue needs, the 200GB is my windows install, the 120GB is for data)

I've found that when using windows, the best bet is to set the system partition as big as possible, forget about a programs partition, except if you're willing to set the default program files path towards another partition or keep changing it with every install..

Sorry, couldn't find a link about FAT cluster size and RAM usage..

If you want to tune your Windows RAM usage, look for some registry settings (either by tweak tools or by regedit) to  force Windows XP to use real RAM instead of the Page file (Or is it Swap) as much as possible.

Then again, with "only" 256 MB...