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cluster

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Medical, Financial, Acronyms, Wikipedia, Hutchinson 0.06 sec.
cluster, in astronomy: see star cluster star cluster, a group of stars near each other in space and resembling each other in certain characteristics that suggest a common origin for the group. Stars in the same cluster move at the same rate and in the same direction.
..... Click the link for more information. ; galaxy galaxy, large aggregation of stars , gas, and dust, typically containing billions of stars. Recognition that galaxies are independent star systems outside the Milky Way came from a study of the Andromeda Galaxy (1926–29) by Edwin P.
..... Click the link for more information. .

(1) Two or more systems working together. See clustering.

(2) Also called an "allocation unit" or "file allocation unit," it is some number of disk sectors that are treated as a unit. A cluster is the smallest unit of storage the operating system's file system can manage. That means if a 1KB file is stored in a system with a 32KB cluster (see table below), the 1KB file takes up 32KB of disk space. Following are the cluster sizes for the FAT file systems on Windows/DOS computers. See FAT, FAT32 and lost cluster.

                       FAT16
     Disk Size         Cluster size

        0-128MB         2KB
      128-256MB         4KB
      256-512MB         8KB
    512MB-1GB          16KB
        1-2GB          32KB

                       FAT32
    Disk Size          Cluster size

    512MB-8GB           4KB
        8-16GB          8KB
       16-32GB         16KB
       32GB+           32KB

1.(architecture)cluster - Multiple servers providing the same service. The term may imply resilience to failure and/or some kind of load balancing between the servers. Compare RAIS.
2.(file system)cluster - An elementary unit of allocation of a disk made up of one or more physical blocks.

A file is made up of a whole number of possibly non-contiguous clusters. The cluster size is a tradeoff between space efficiency (the bigger is the cluster, the bigger is on the average the wasted space at the end of each file) and the length of the FAT.
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Meanwhile I am approaching a decorative old Surrey town, little more than a cluster of ripe old inns, to one of which I have much pleasure in inviting the reader to dinner.
The Quest of the Golden Girl by le Gallienne, Richard View in context
It was a fruitless search, however, in so far as antelope is concerned; but one night as I lay courting sleep at the edge of a little cluster of date-palms that surround an ancient well in the midst of the arid, shifting sands, I suddenly became conscious of a strange sound coming apparently from the earth beneath my head.
Pellucidar by Burroughs, Edgar Rice View in context
The cluster shivered, as from hooked fore-foot to hooked hind-foot it telegraphed uneasiness.
Actions and Reactions by Kipling, Rudyard View in context
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