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I have 2 HDDs and 5 partitions in them, and I can't find this question answered on DuckDuckGo, Google nor Microsoft; the command doesn't allow to specify a drive letter, so I suppose is for all partitions, but I don't know for sure.

Or the default is C: and I have to change the focus with DiskPart? Windows 8.1 Off and online Help don't have anything about it neither, so I'm lost.

saultube28
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From How NTFS reserves space for its Master File Table (MFT) where it mentions a nearly identical (and identically functioning) registry key at the very bottom of the page:

Note This is a run-time parameter and does not affect the actual format of a volume. Rather, it affects the way NTFS allocates space on all volumes on a given system. Therefore, to be completely effective, the parameter must be in effect from the time that a volume is formatted and throughout the life of the volume. If the registry parameter is adjusted downward or removed, the MFT zone will be reduced accordingly, but this will not have any affect on MFT space already allocated and used.

The parameter simply attempts to ensure that the area after the MFT is kept clear for new entries in the event that the MFT needs to grow. It is essentially an indicator to the system that says "the user reckons they'll have millions of files and we will need MFT entries for a lot more than usual".

It is not a parameter that can be used to increase the MFT size per disk partition.

They do list the command dir /a $mft to show the actual MFT size, but it does not work for me. Edit(by saultube 28): because it's for NT 4.0 which is pre-Windows 2000.

Microsoft do have a tool to show NTFS information per drive NTFSInfo and it will apparently show MFT size.

NTFSInfo will tell you where on the disk the MFT-Zone is located and what percentage of the drive is reserved for it.

In order to simply expand the MFT you can create a massive tree of folders which will use up entries in the MFT forcing it to allocate a new block. Done on an otherwise empty drive this will quickly expand the MFT without actually putting any significant data on the drive. The folders can then be deleted.

There is a tool to do this at Schooltechnician.co.uk: Increasing the size of your MFT but I make no claims about the tool, I am not affiliated and this is simply one I found at a quick search.

Per that page:

In my work, I have servers which hold millions of tiny files. I needed to have a large Master File Table from the outset to prevent future problems. I’ve created a free .Net application that will create a hierarchy of nested folders on a drive, and delete them again when finished. Creating folders seems is the easiest method of artificially causing the Master File Table to grow. Each folder seems to creates a 1024kb entry (1GB of MFT = 1,024,000 folders or files).

Mokubai
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  • I knew most of these, I didn't clarify that nor how specific my question should have been; I apologize for that. What I actually wanted to know is how to address the configuration of each partition MFT. I use PerfectDisk for defrag, that on Analysis tells you the size of the MFT, on some mftzone 2 (multiples of 200 MB) is justified, on others only 1, the default is 0 which on which translates in practice to 1. So I guess as I wrote so kindly, it's 1 config fits all unfortunately. Can't give you an up vote for that dumb rule of 15 reputation, this should like Reddit, anyway thanks a bunch! – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 11:54
  • BTW good job on the link, search engines these days are so filtered that is getting harder to get good results. That Dir command is for NT 4.0 which is Windows 2000 – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 11:57
  • I had wondered if you were wanting to configure the MFT, but I wasn't able to find any information on how to go about increasing it above whatever NTFS.sys considers "standard" except by kludges that simply create swathes of folders and deletes them after in order to force it to grow that way. The only documentation I could find that was reasonably authoritative was what I linked. It seems that optimising this particular filesystem area isn't really looked at any more, possibly as on larger volumes the initial "percentage allocated" is large enough that it isn't a problem. – Mokubai Feb 17 '20 at 12:37
  • Clarification: I made a mistake: Windows NT 4.0 is not Windows 2000, I can't edit the comment, anyway Nt 4.0 which was a lot let restrictive apparently. Windows 2000 is NT 5.0 – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 13:02
  • Not really, let me explain: If you type 'fsutil behavior set mftzone' on the line: MftZone 1 through 100 (this value multipled by 200 MB) you'll see the options in Win 8.1, the old one was 1-4. It prevents thefragmentation of this very often accessed table, which is important, ideally it should be right besides a Directory/Folder Zone where all folders should be stored, that way accessing the location and metadata of any file would be efficient. PerfectDisk uses this parameter to reserve it and prevent fragmentation. The Size of the MFT changes as the the number of files grows, – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 13:52
  • and I thought that 200 MB which are 200,000 file entries, as the NTFS takes 1,024bytes=1KiB on each file entry, would be enough for any partition, well no, my 1.8 TiB (2 TB) partition MFT is 214 MiB, mostly large files; my C: is 55 GiB and has a 332.25 MiB MFT, my 877 GiB (1TB) partition MFT is 153.25 MiB, my 9 GiB Temp partition 84.75 MiB and 8 GB PageFile.sys partition 256 KiB, mainly because I made the cluster size=16 KiB, which is the Page File granularity, the rest of partitions cluster size=4 KiB, because efficiency. – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 13:53
  • So it's necessary, so it is an individually dynamic partition/volume configuration. – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 13:53
  • I wasn't disputing the necessity of modifying it, I fully expect it to be necessary in some cases, I was just under the impression that it was at least dependent on the size of the disk and in that I may be wrong. It may have been in the past (especially on smaller disks) and be considered less necessary these days due to large disks, and while fragmentation is an issue it may be considered that disk caching reduces the penalty of it to a point where on a modern system it is not a problem, especially as frequency of access would keep it in the cache. – Mokubai Feb 17 '20 at 14:08
  • You pointed out that it might not be important to optimize it anymore and is not being care for much, but it is. You're partially and understandably wrong: Depends on the size of the number of files/folders and that depends partially on the size of the partition/volume; the only case where it is dynamic is when the partition/volume is <= 1.5 GiB back in the old days when that was the 1 TB of today. IMO the increments shouldn't be in 200 MiB but 50 MiB, dynamic, automatic per partition/volume. The problem with fragmentation is that's a physical limitation that's timely costly, so cache is – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 15:37
  • irrelevant, in the sense that the initial problem is persistent, and with enough fragmentation, which always increases, it can be really bad. On electromechanical drives, fragmentation is always important; Optimal file positioning to never have ragmentation should be part of every File System algorithm – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 15:38
  • Clarification: Win NT 4.0 is Not Windows 2000, can't edit that comment anymore, Windows 2000 is NT 5.0 – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 16:09
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    Fragmentation *can* be bad, but the question is how bad. Is this a real problem you are having and need a solution for? If so then you may need to ask a new question detailing the actual problem you are having and why you need to fix or set the MFT size. If you have a clean drive and just want to bloat the MFT then there is a tool at https://www.schooltechnician.co.uk/increasing-the-size-of-your-mft/ I have also added it to my answer. – Mokubai Feb 17 '20 at 16:49
  • Oh no problem at all, I'm a PC tech, and I was curious about the actual behavior of this NTFS setting, to know how to configure it properly, but I have never had any need to adjust it until it passed the initial 200 MiB, and then the 400 MiB, when I downloaded VS 2019 free edition, which I uninstalled and the MFT went down 100+ MiB, VS is huge with zillion of files; thanks for your concern tho. the solution is simple if I see the MFT Zone fragmented on PerfectDisk drive map I just +1 the setting and make a boot defrag.Thanks for the link. Drive map: https://i.postimg.cc/L67jgPv2/Untitled22.png – saultube28 Feb 17 '20 at 17:32