Can large cluster size affect HDD speed on the XBox?

[PRince404]

My Xbox is running a 160 GB IDE from 2007 or something.

I needed to ask this about 3 years ago, I used Crunchbite's (on Homebrew Discord) 8 GB Etcher image to prepare the new drive then iirc I used the XBox Formatter to make the partitions (which automatically set the cluster size to 16 KB) then I copied all the C:\ drive content from the original 8 GB HDD via FatXPlorer and also transferred some games and homebrew.

And at that time when I was using the stock HDD my Xbox was giving me constant 10-11 mb/s on my diy crossover cable connection to my laptop.

After I put that new HDD in I didn't notice that right away but the max transfer speeds I get are around 3-7 mb/s on the same crossover ethernet cable.

Is it related to the cluster size or is the HDD just bad or on it last legs?

Edited April 2, 2024 by PRince404

[MadMartigan]

Try just a regular ethernet cable as opposed to the crossover. 

[PRince404]

2 hours ago, MadMartigan said:

Try just a regular ethernet cable as opposed to the crossover. 

But why would that be the issue since it worked fine when I was using the stock HDD?

Also how do you use a normal cable to FTP stuff? The guide I used only showed two methods which one was connecting your Xbox to a Wifi/LAN Router and transferring files via the router and using a Crossover cable to directly connect the XBox to a PC. Which is what I've been doing.  

Edited April 2, 2024 by PRince404

[FrostyMaGee]

7 hours ago, PRince404 said:

My Xbox is running a 160 GB IDE from 2007 or something.

I needed to ask this about 3 years ago, I used Crunchbite's (on Homebrew Discord) 8 GB Etcher image to prepare the new drive then iirc I used the XBox Formatter to make the partitions (which automatically set the cluster size to 16 KB) then I copied all the C:\ drive content from the original 8 GB HDD via FatXPlorer and also transferred some games and homebrew.

And at that time when I was using the stock HDD my Xbox was giving me constant 10-11 mb/s on my diy crossover cable connection to my laptop.

After I put that new HDD in I didn't notice that right away but the max transfer speeds I get are around 3-7 mb/s on the same crossover ethernet cable.

Is it related to the cluster size or is the HDD just bad or on it last legs?

I’ve had it dip like that when ftping lots of files (like a game rip) but give a solid 10-11mbs on large files like xisos. Could it just be something like that or are you noticing that drop in tx speed for everything?

[MadMartigan]

6 hours ago, PRince404 said:

But why would that be the issue since it worked fine when I was using the stock HDD?

Also how do you use a normal cable to FTP stuff? The guide I used only showed two methods which one was connecting your Xbox to a Wifi/LAN Router and transferring files via the router and using a Crossover cable to directly connect the XBox to a PC. Which is what I've been doing.  

Same exact method, different cable. If you have one, give it a try just to see. 

[PRince404]

9 hours ago, FrostyMaGee said:

I’ve had it dip like that when ftping lots of files (like a game rip) but give a solid 10-11mbs on large files like xisos. Could it just be something like that or are you noticing that drop in tx speed for everything?

It's every file, doesn't matter how big it is.

[tiertop]

I think I've noticed hard drive seek performance reduced with 256KB cluster size partitions. Or maybe it's some kind of translation overhead?

I've decided to make a 1TB 64KB partition and put the big dashboards with lots of emulators on that.  They load faster and scan games faster.  The XBox game ISOs can be put on the >= 256KB cluster partition. Though maybe making several 1TB 64KB partitions would be ideal.

Edited October 4, 2024 by tiertop

[NokSueCow]

I never got around to confirming this or looking it up, but a while back on the xbox scene discord someone mentioned that theoretically, larger clusters may have better performance using Cerbios. I've no clue around what month it was, or who said it, but it was interesting to hear.

[PRince404]

Yeah I posted this when I was still using EvoX_M8+ because I only have a 1.6 rev. After Cerbios fixed the Noise issue on video signal I did notice the loading times get tad bit better. 

[nikeymikey]

The main issue with larger cluster sizes is wasted space. The bigger cluster size you have the more space is wasted by all the tiny files that are less than the cluster. The bigger the cluster the bigger the minimum file size needs to be to fill it. Some extracted games files, emulator files and even retro roms are only a few kb in size and as such everyone of them will take a minimum of 256k when that is the cluster size. 

It soon builds up to a lot of wasted space. 

There was a thread here somewhere all about it....

EDIT - Heres the thread...

 

[HDShadow]

FYI: With modern PCs whether you're using a cross-over cable of not should be irrelevant. They (the PC) can detect the signals whatever pins are being used as the cables are exactly the same as a standard ethernet cable just with the plug one end being wired differently, essentially just reversed.

The only time now you do need a cross-over cable is when FTPing directly between two Xboxes using the UnleashX file manager's built in FTP client. I think XBMC's file manager allows Xbox to Xbox FTP but I've never looked into that.

In short the cross-over cable should make no difference to the speed. But as MadMartigan suggested it is worth try a new ethernet cable (Cat 5 S/STP) just to see if the cable itself is involved in any way with the perceived speed drop.