Chossing Bytes per inodes in Linux
When you format a partition using Linux's primary file system, ext2, you have the choice of how many bytes
per inode you want. From the man page:
 -i bytes-per-inode
              Specify  the  bytes/inode ratio.  mke2fs creates an
              inode for every bytes-per-inode bytes of  space  on
              the  disk.   This  value  defaults  to  4096 bytes.
              bytes-per-inode must be at least 1024.
This means that by using a smaller size, you will save disk space but may slow down the system. It is a
space/speed trade off.
This is similar to one of FAT16/FAT32' major differences