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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Hardware Issues and discussion => Topic started by: Hyperspeed on February 27, 2006, 05:55:57 AM

Title: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: Hyperspeed on February 27, 2006, 05:55:57 AM
I've fancied a nice Quantum 4.3GB drive but this size seem to just overlap the 4.2GB limit of the old filesystem.

Without upgrading to the D64/SFS filesystems, would this 4.3GB be addressable once formatted (since the formatted space would be way less than 4.3GB)?

Does the old filesystem limit of 4.2GB refer to the drive capacity formatted or unformatted/geometry?

Also, on a SCSI system, how would the old file system behave with a theoretical 7x 4.2GB drives = 29.4GB?
Title: Re: No title
Post by: Effy on February 27, 2006, 05:59:01 AM
Why making it so diffiult for yourself ? Just use only 4 Gb and your problem is temporarely solved until you upgrade to OS3.9  :lol:
Title: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: Hyperspeed on February 27, 2006, 06:15:13 AM
Well it's hard to get a 4.0GB drive and I like the Quantum Fireball. It's a good model - however it only comes in 3.2GB and 4.3GB sizes (maybe a 9GB...).

It would be easy to get a 3.2GB one but much nicer to get 1,126MB extra with the 4.3GB size!

Seagate Barracuda ran too hot for my liking despite it being a bit quieter.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: Effy on February 27, 2006, 06:22:59 AM
HDtoolbox will probably detect the real size and with the slider you can decided to use only the first 4 Gb, or just to be sure you can take 3,9 Gb from which the first partition may not be bigger than 2 Gb ...
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: Hyperspeed on March 05, 2006, 02:39:52 AM
Hrrrm, I hadn't considered this before - pruning the size down to fit the 4.2GB limit!

So if you had a 4.3GB drive and the sum of your partitions was no more than 4.2GB (checked with check4gb.lha) and you left the last bit empty the file system wouldn't address the entire disk and just the sum of the set up partitions?

If this works with Phase5's scsiconfig partition software then I'm prepared to waste 102.4MB in favour of gaining 1,024MB!

(A 4.3GB drive instead of a 3.2GB)

:-D
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: FirstAkir on March 05, 2006, 05:12:08 AM
Just use two partitions. Shouldn't be that hard.

And just why would you need more then 4GB for an amiga anyways? Video Editing?
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: DamageX on March 05, 2006, 05:13:57 AM
Harddrives are already formatted when you get them (physical format, not logical format) but some people (including drive manufacturers) will talk about 4.2GB = 4,200,000,000 bytes while others will talk about 4.0GB = (the limit of 32-bit addressing) = 4,294,967,296 bytes

And yes, the 4GB limitation does not mean that you need a drive of 4GB or less, you just won't be able to use the additional space.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: pVC on March 05, 2006, 09:29:20 AM
You can have several disks on SCSI. And disk's size doesn't matter until you don't use more than first 4GB of them. And remember that every partition's max size is 2GB with old FFS.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: amigagr on March 05, 2006, 11:19:29 AM
an other option, before you do anything with the disk, is to install nsdpatch (http://de4.aminet.net/disk/misc/NSDPatch43_20.lha)
for 64bit scsi update and the ffs64patch (http://siliconsonic.de/t/bin/ffstd64.lha)
for 64bit fastfilesystem support.
these patches are usefull only on Workbench3.1

-edit-
in any case, if you want to make the first partition bootable,limit it's size to no more than 2gb
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: Hyperspeed on March 06, 2006, 12:04:01 AM
With Check4GB on Aminet, does it also check for partitions no bigger than 2GB or just the entire drive no bigger than 4GB?

The reason I ask is because it lists individual devices (hence partitions) with a Yes/No next to them.

I read that the older HDToolBox don't like partitions bigger than 1GB...?
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: amigagr on March 06, 2006, 12:21:30 AM
Quote

Hyperspeed wrote:
I read that the older HDToolBox don't like partitions bigger than 1GB...?


i recently run the hdtoolbox from the install disk of a590, the hard disk expansion for amiga500, of course i run it on the a1200 and with sfs on the disk, but it could ''see'' up to 2gb! partitions. this hdtoolbox i think is from wb1.2.

-edit-
probably the higher barrier has to do and with the proper or not scsi.device.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: Hyperspeed on March 06, 2006, 01:12:47 AM
EDIT: Double-post.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: Hyperspeed on March 06, 2006, 01:13:10 AM
Damn, I still can't use the 'Quote' button on IBrowse 2.3...

Well, I won't want a partition bigger than 2GB for the time being, when I upgrade to 3.5/3.9 maybe.

Just another curio here... what is the largest size of PCMCIA SRAM that the A600/A1200 can take. I've seen some SRAM models in 6MB varieties but I heard once that 4MB was the limit of carddisk.device
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: on March 06, 2006, 12:58:26 PM
Quote

Hyperspeed wrote:
Damn, I still can't use the 'Quote' button on IBrowse 2.3...


Yype '['quote']' to start a quote block, and '['/quote']' to end the block.

Obviously you don't need the quotation marks.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: darksun9210 on March 06, 2006, 02:07:36 PM
also bear in mind that disk manufaturers gigabytes are 1,000,000,000 bytes, not 1,073,741,824 bytes. :-o

so your "4.3Gb" disk is only 4100.8Mb. 4.8Mb over the 4096Mb limit. :-D

4Mb isn't a big deal to loose.
just make sure your paritions add up to less than 4096Mb if you don't have any patch software or updated fastfilesystem installed.

 :-)

as regards to a multidisk scsi setup... it'll have as many disks/partitions as you like on there.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: Olecranon on March 06, 2006, 04:55:55 PM
Quote

amije wrote:

-edit-
in any case, if you want to make the first partition bootable,limit it's size to no more than 2gb


So what your saying is that you cant use more that 4GB's from any hard drive and if the partition is a BOOT partition it cant be more than 2GB?

Are there any alternate Filesystems that will work with KS2.04/WB2.1 ?
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: darksun9210 on March 06, 2006, 05:16:02 PM
i've not heard of the 2Gb partition limit,
but i personally wouldn't have a system partition bigger than a gig - usually about 250Mb or so. as if at anytime you loose validation on your system drive, its going to take forever to re-validate a big partition.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: amigagr on March 06, 2006, 07:04:26 PM
@Olecranon:  these days of big disks i use only 512mb for the boot partition. have in mind this: whatever patches you can apply to the system during boot or after this, at the very begining the amiga boots with the standard rom's limitations. rom's 3.1 scsi device can't ''see'' more than 4gb at first boot of amiga. the 2gb limit is something i have read here and there a lot of times, not a personal expirience. you can check here (http://strohmayer.org/sfs/files/SFS.lha) and here (http://strohmayer.org/sfs/files/SFS_1.254_68k.lha) for sfs. read carefully before attempt anything to your drive and backup all the data just in case :-) for me sfs is safer and faster. can work with partitions up to 128gb, but always have in mind a small boot partition.
BTW: there is a new update of sfs to version 1.254
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted?
Post by: TjLaZer on March 06, 2006, 07:24:40 PM
When I was upgrading one of my A600HDs I installed a IBM Travelstar 4.86GB notebook HD into it.  I have KS 3.1.  I was playing around and found that all I had to do to make it work with no patches or anything is to simply only partition it upto 4.00GB.  So I added like 3 partitions and made sure the last one was not over the 4.00 mark.  Works perfectly.  Do that and you will be ok.

Oh and I used HDInstTools on Aminet and it allowed me to partition the large drive no probs.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: koaftder on March 06, 2006, 07:25:32 PM
Quote

DamageX wrote:
Harddrives are already formatted when you get them (physical format, not logical format) but some people (including drive manufacturers) will talk about 4.2GB = 4,200,000,000 bytes while others will talk about 4.0GB = (the limit of 32-bit addressing) = 4,294,967,296 bytes

And yes, the 4GB limitation does not mean that you need a drive of 4GB or less, you just won't be able to use the additional space.


Harddrive mfrg's make me mad with all that crap. In their world:

1kb = 1000 bytes
imb = 1000 kb
1gb = 1000 mb

or they define 1mb = 1024kb but a gb = 1000mb.

You should be able to calculate exactly how many bytes are on the drive from the number on the box.



Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: amigagr on March 06, 2006, 07:30:46 PM
@koaftder: using hdtoolbox when you define the cylinders of a partition and clicking cylinder by cylinder upwards to ''count'' 1mb or 1gb you will see that 1mb or 1gb are 1024 kb or mb
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: Hyperspeed on March 06, 2006, 08:43:47 PM
So the old FFS limit is 4.2GB or 4.0GB?

Anyway, it's interesting that the limitation only applies to the addresable area for partitions and not the drive itself.

Out of curiosity though, would HDToolBox still check for bad blocks outside the 4.2GB limit or does this have nothing to do with the filesystem itself?


Quote

Old Macdonald had a farm... ee ay ee ay oh!


EDIT: Hurray! I can quote...  now all I need is the code for the flame-thrower smiley!
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: amigagr on March 06, 2006, 08:53:41 PM
i think this is a matter of both scsi device and file system limitations. the 64 nsd versions can ''see'' and work in theory with some terabytes. microsoft had similar broblems with fat, fat32 and the latest, the 128gb barrier before the sp1 of winxp. if you have a biger drive and plain xp you can use only the first 128gb until you install the sp1 update
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: koaftder on March 06, 2006, 08:58:16 PM
Quote

amije wrote:
i think this is a matter of both scsi device and file system limitations. the 64 nsd versions can ''see'' and work in theory with some terabytes. microsoft had similar broblems with fat, fat32 and the latest, the 128gb barrier before the sp1 of winxp. if you have a biger drive and plain xp you can use only the first 128gb until you install the sp1 update


Man, am i the only one who cant fill up a 40 gig drive on a pc or a mac?
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: Hyperspeed on March 06, 2006, 08:59:00 PM
A little off-topic here but I recently saw Blue-Ray discs in an office catalogue.

I'm assuming the drives are out so has any Amiga owner experienced the joys of 28GB recordable discs?

:-)

EDIT:
koaftder: I'm only just filling a 2GB drive! What are you PC owners putting on there, filthy movies!?

:-D
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: amigagr on March 06, 2006, 09:14:26 PM
in the pc that i use at work for editing i have a lot of times  used more than 100gb for a video project. just think that 1 hour of dv video is 13gb of disk space. if the prime material is 5-10 minidv or dvcam tapes plus the rendering of the final movie plus the dvd version rendering, you end up with 200gb for just one project. some times even this is not  enough.
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: Piru on March 06, 2006, 09:22:26 PM
Quote
Man, am i the only one who cant fill up a 40 gig drive on a pc or a mac?

Code: [Select]

Unit      Size    Used    Free Full Errs   State     Type Name
SDH2:    96.4G   88.7G    7.7G  92%    0 read/write  PFS3 Huge
SSDH1:   29.9G   26.3G    3.7G  88%    0 read/write  PFS3 Storage
SSDH2:   96.4G   90.2G    6.2G  94%    0 read/write  PFS3 Work

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda6              66G  3.6G   59G   6% /home
/dev/sda1             373G  314G   60G  85% /mnt/siika1
/dev/hdd1             373G  179G  195G  48% /mnt/siika2
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: koaftder on March 06, 2006, 09:30:11 PM
Quote

Piru wrote:
Quote
Man, am i the only one who cant fill up a 40 gig drive on a pc or a mac?

Code: [Select]

Unit      Size    Used    Free Full Errs   State     Type Name
SDH2:    96.4G   88.7G    7.7G  92%    0 read/write  PFS3 Huge
SSDH1:   29.9G   26.3G    3.7G  88%    0 read/write  PFS3 Storage
SSDH2:   96.4G   90.2G    6.2G  94%    0 read/write  PFS3 Work

Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/hda6              66G  3.6G   59G   6% /home
/dev/sda1             373G  314G   60G  85% /mnt/siika1
/dev/hdd1             373G  179G  195G  48% /mnt/siika2


You sir, are the king of pr0n!  :-D
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: Hyperspeed on March 06, 2006, 10:14:11 PM
That's not pr0n, that's l33t 'code'!
Title: Re: 4.2GB - Formatted or Unformatted
Post by: Ozimandius on October 05, 2007, 08:21:13 PM
Oh feck - God know's what I'm doing on my PC's then!

Home PC has a 80gb & 400gb - total of 250gb left

Work PC has a 300gb & 150gb - total of 200 left

lol!

Must be all those 12gb game installations

Ozi