[Steve_P]

Not aimed at Nokia specifically but I'd thought I would share my finding with all you guys/gals here.

I've just recently upgraded to a 1GB DV-RS-MMC card for my Nokia N70 from the Orange supplied 64MB card and generally all is working well.

However, I've found that because of the limitations of the FAT16 file system used to format the cards that the approx 35MB of files I had on my 64MB card now takes up a whopping 60 ish MB on my 1GB card because the file system uses different sized clusters to map the memory card.

Typically, the 64MB card used 1kB cluster size whereas the 1GB card instead uses 16kB clusters. I've not found a way to force the format command to use different sizes with the /A:size qualifier with the DOS Format command as, the FAT file system imposes a maximum limit restriction of 65526 clusters for a given volume.

Does anyone know of a work around? Would formatting the memory card via the phone instead of using my PC give me a smaller cluster size and hence more efficient use of my 1GB card or does the phone follow standard conventions? As it stands if I save a 1 Byte file to the card, it will take up 16kB space and that's a big waste.

If this is all greek to you, just don't be surprised if you upgrade to a really big memory card and the files you had previously suddenly mysteriously take up a whole lot of space!

Microsoft Tech. Info. - Default Cluster size for FAT & NTFS

On the bright side, at least I have another 900MB or so to play with

S.