Set FAT32 Cluster Size with mkdosfs/mkfs.fvfat/mkfs.dosfs ?

[aphirst]

I am an avid user of Nintendo DS Flashcard technology; and have learned that "Larger FAT(32) Cluster sizes result in quicker random-access". Slow Random-Access causes some DS applications/games to freeze. In these circumstances, since the smallest files I'm dealing with are 512KB save files (40% of files, and 99% of space, is occupied by 5-to-100MB+ Files), "wasted space" isn't an issue.

I know that in Windows, the command to format a device to FAT32 with the largest available (to my knowledge) cluster size is:

FORMAT X: /FS:FAT32 /A:64K

Here in Linux-Land, things are different (and in almost all cases, better). But one thing snags me on the mkdosfs man page:
There are two options, -s, and -S. -s is sectors-per-cluster. -S is logical sector size.

My question is this: What command in linux is equivelant to the DOS command above: would it suffice/be reccommended to disregard the -s and set -S to 65536 ?

Thanks for the input: I don't have access to a Windows/DOS machine when I have access to my DS or my MicroSDHC.

[az]

I am an avid user of Nintendo DS Flashcard technology; and have learned that "Larger FAT(32) Cluster sizes result in quicker random-access". Slow Random-Access causes some DS applications/games to freeze. In these circumstances, since the smallest files I'm dealing with are 512KB save files (40% of files, and 99% of space, is occupied by 5-to-100MB+ Files), "wasted space" isn't an issue.

I know that in Windows, the command to format a device to FAT32 with the largest available (to my knowledge) cluster size is:

FORMAT X: /FS:FAT32 /A:64K

Here in Linux-Land, things are different (and in almost all cases, better). But one thing snags me on the mkdosfs man page:
There are two options, -s, and -S. -s is sectors-per-cluster. -S is logical sector size.

My question is this: What command in linux is equivelant to the DOS command above: would it suffice/be reccommended to disregard the -s and set -S to 65536 ?

Thanks for the input: I don't have access to a Windows/DOS machine when I have access to my DS or my MicroSDHC.

Well, I don't know about performance, but the quote you mention only refers to cluster size and not block size. Is would make sense that the command you want to try is:

sudo mkdosfs /dev/sdc1 -s 64 -F 32

Be sure to specify the correct device instead of "sdc1"

[aphirst]

Thank you very much (!).
I had tried, funnily enough, this exact command (except for the -I that was needed to format the entire drive as FAT32); and it seemed to work smashing (even the random-access problems went away magically). It was just my "was that the correct way around the problem/would that have caused problems later on" uncertainty. At least now I have some confirmation that I did the right thing.

Again, thanks ( ^_^ ), and just in case you care: 'Proof' that I had tried this command, and of my uncertainty as to its 'correctness'

[evaldas]

I would think that the proper command should be:

sudo mkdosfs /dev/sdc1 -s 128 -F 32

since the author wanted 64KB clusters.

And because -s means sectors-per-cluster and the sector is usually is 512 bytes, so that's why 128 sectors. And I guess the above command is equally the same as:

sudo mkdosfs /dev/sdc1 -s 128 -S 512 -F 32

And I'd like ask what tool can give me the information about FAT type (12, 16 or 32) and cluster sizes used on already formatted FAT partition.

[Dwaalspoor98]

Late answer, I know but maybe helpful for other people: minfo is what you're looking for, you first need to assign a drive letter to your device in /etc/mtools.conf, after that you can use it for example like this:
$ sudo minfo -v d:

[moli]

I've tested my DS Lite v5 + Acekard v2.1 + Akaio v1.5.1
with sector size (-S parameter) from 1024 bytes to 8192 bytes neither worked, only 512 byte sector worked.
Maximum cluster size of 64 sectors works.
So maximum cluster size is 32768 bytes instead of the desired 524288 bytes (at which ~12MB Akaio took up 100MB).