Master Table File

[Empty_5oul]

back to something said the other day.

i now have a good paging file that i am well below and is perfect as far as i am conecrned :thumbleft: i downloaded that diskeeper and it says my MTF is at 97% and needs sorting. as shown in the URL image
www.stenroy.com/~ftpoliver/MTF.jpg

what are the best settings for this, what size ??
i have 1 gig memory, 160G sata HD, 256mb geforce 5700 gfx.

thx for all advice so far and all future advice

Oli

[rrcrain]

THe MFT or Master FIle Table as far as I know, can't be set with a default size. The OS builds an MFT on install based upon the size of the drive/partition but it will grow over time. The explanation of why this happens s a complicated mess so I won't try unless you want to be bored. Best thing to do is defrag the MFT by doing a boot time defrag.


Hmmm...

I just looked at your link and am puzzled. The new version does something the previous version didn't do. Still, do the boot time defrag and what the heck, let it set it to what it wants to. Small files get written directly into the MFT making it grow.

[Empty_5oul]

so from my picture select configure to the recommended size.

[rrcrain]

I was editing my previous post while you were posting your post. Reread my previous post please.

[Empty_5oul]

thx, and for the re-post due to edit.

i see you are a junior member now, so you are learning the AMD way :P

[andrewdodd13]

the MFT on windows 2k/XP can be set to 12.5%[default]. 25, 37.5 or 50% iirc. i usually use 12.5%. this is taken up in an area called the MFT zone, if you run out of space the MFT zone actually shrinks to fit the data in, assuming that the actual MFT is small enough...
hate to sound like an advertiser, but perfect disk shows you both the MFT and the MFT zone and exactly where it is on your disk...

[rrcrain]

After I made my last post, I got to thinking. A long time ago, I played around with a registry setting that controls the size of the MFT.

Here's how. ( At least for NT 4)

The MFT is the heart of an NTFS partition. There is at least one entry in the MFT for every file on an NTFS volume. All the information about a file, including its' size, time and date stamps, permissions, data content, etc. are stored in the MFT (or in space described by the MFT).

To prevent fragmentation of the MFT, NTFS reserves space for the MFT in an effort to keep it as contiguous as it grows. This is important because defraggers can not move MFT records and fragmentation of the MFT can severely impact performance. (Current defraggers do this at boot time)

When you add files to an NTFS volume, entries are added to the MFT. When files are deleted from an NTFS volume, their MFT entries are marked as free and may be reused, but the MFT does not shrink. Thus, space used by these entries is not reclaimed from the disk.

NTFS reserves a percentage of the volume for exclusive use of the MFT. Space for files and directories will not be allocated from this MFT zone until all other space is allocated first. Depending on the average file size and other variables, either the reserved MFT zone or the unreserved space on the disk may be filled first. Volumes with a few large files will exhaust the unreserved space first, while volumes with a large number of small files will exhaust the MFT zone space first. When either the MFT zone or the unreserved space fills, fragmentation of the MFT starts. If the unreserved space becomes full, space for user files and directories will be allocated from the MFT zone. If the MFT zone becomes full, space for new MFT entries will be allocated from the remainder of the disk.

You can impact the amount of space NTFS reserves for the MFT by editing:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\FileSystem

Add Value name NtfsMftZoneReservation as a type REG_DWORD and set the data value. The valid range is 1 - 4.

1 - The minimum percentage (undocument and changing in SP4) will be used.
4 - The maximum percentage will be used.

The ratio between these values is also undocumented and will also change with SP4.

NOTE: This is a run-time parameter and does not affect the format of a volume. It affects the way NTFS allocates space on all volumes. To be completely effective, this entry should in effect at the time you format a volume.


For Windows 2000:

described the MFT and MFT Reserved Zone in tip 0487.

In Windows NT 4.0, the size of the MFT Reserved Zone is fixed, once established. In Windows 2000, the MFT Reserved Zone is dynamically created every time the partition is mounted.

To manage the size of the MFT Reserved Zone, use Regedt32 to navigate to:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Contro l\FileSystem

Edit or Add Value name NtfsMftZoneReservation, as a REG+_DWORD data type. The valid data value range is 1 - 4, where 1 sets the minimum and 4 sets the maximum.

After I set the NtfsMftZoneReservation to 1 and restarted my laptop, the size of the MFT Reserved Zone was dramatically reduced, but still sufficently large to handle any conceivable file object additions

[Beerknurd]

I hope your using TKC and WhatPulse. :lol:

[rrcrain]

Never heard of them.

I had forgotten about that registry setting its been so long I looked at it. I'm pretty much of the mind to let the system manage itself as far as the size of the MFT is concerned.

[Ototero]

rrcrain,

Look at stats at www.stats.amdusers.com and check out TKC and What Pulse, they are both key counters. Not strictly DC but fun and competitive anyway.

And we need your help ;)

[rrcrain]

OH!

That post wouldn't have helped in any event since I did a copy/paste from my collection of interesting but perhaps useless tidbits file for Windows.

[Ototero]

What can we call you instead of rrcrain??

[rrcrain]

FIrst name is Richard

[Ototero]

Thanks Richard, mines Stuart.

You've got quite a lot of technical knowledge. What's your job?

You'll soon stop being a junior member.

[rrcrain]

I used to be in the IT staff for a large corporation until they had a massive cutback in staffing 2 years ago. I wore several hats at the time ranging from backup server admin with over three quarters of a terabyte to babysit, help desk support (levels 1, 2 and 3 at one time or another) and supported a variety of applications and utilities.

What I do now for the same company pretty well sucks raw eggs, but I'm employed.

[Empty_5oul]

well, it seems you did learn a lot from some of your recnet posts.