SmartFileSystem V 1.279 On The Amiga Some FACTS...

[Robert17]

Nice post Franko, SFS is a great filesystem, I've been using it for years, and lots of other people I know do too, no problems found, and it's fast too.

PFS is handy though if you want an alternative for a 68000 based machine, as SFS requires an 020+ :-)

Robert.

[dannyp1]

Mr. Spock: Lieutenant, I am half-Vulcanian. Vulcanians do not speculate. I speak from pure logic. If I let go of a hammer on a planet that has a positive gravity, I need not see it fall to know that it has in fact fallen.

[Franko]

Hard disk sector size is fixed by the manufacturer, file system block size can be changed to any whole number of sectors. Unfortunately the words blocks and sectors are used as synonyms in many places or even mixed up.

As I understand it, the maximum partition size of SFS calculates from the file system block size. So you are right in this regard.

Thank you Thomas...

I've said before I'm not the type to go into all the technical jargon when trying to explain something, prefer to keep it as simple as possible so anyone can understand...

Yeah... Blocks & Sectors in Amiga docs have been generally mixed up for as long as I can remember, which can often lead to some confusion...

All I'm trying to do here is point out to folk that if they need to be able to use filesizes of greater than 4GB, then there is a perfectly stable and working filesystem out there that's free for them to use and does what it is required to do...

The PFS Vs SFS reminds me of the whole VHS Vs BetaMax thing, VHS (PFS) may a have won out in the end but BetaMax (SFS) was technically superior and yet it lost...

[itix]

Fast De-Fragmentation Routines (Built In and 100% Transparent To The User) (No Need To De-frag)...

No need to defrag, that is wrong. SFS has built-in defragmentation that can run in the background still allowing applications to use that disk but you must still run degragmentation from external application.

File Names Of Up To 127 Characters...

AmigaOS 3.1 allows only up to 107 characters. Some other filesystems may support up to 255 characters or even more. But in AmigaOS 3.1 you are still limited to 107 characters.

Supports Notification & ExamineAll...

ExAll() support is not vital. It speeds up dir scanning but DOS can emulate ExAll() if it is missing.

Option To Have A Special Directory That Can Contain Up To The Last 350 Files That You Have Deleted...

Only up to 350 files? Are you sure? You can change limit (at least in MorphOS) up to 16384 files although I dont recommend doing so. (Using large .recycled dir fragments disk very fast.)

[Franko]

No need to defrag, that is wrong. SFS has built-in defragmentation that can run in the background still allowing applications to use that disk but you must still run degragmentation from external application.

That's what the docs say but to be honest unlike FFS I've never found the need to de-frag any SFS partition as I only use them for storing large data files like DVD/ CD ISO's and such...

I use FFS for all my Amiga progs and apps as none of them need such large partitions due the their small size...

AmigaOS 3.1 allows only up to 107 characters. Some other filesystems may support up to 255 characters or even more. But in AmigaOS 3.1 you are still limited to 107 characters.

Not being one who uses much stuff written or saved on other systems I've never came across a filename that it couldn't handle (even stuff downloaded from the net) so the 107 char limit isn't a problem for me...

ExAll() support is not vital. It speeds up dir scanning but DOS can emulate ExAll() if it is missing.

Agreed...

Only up to 350 files? Are you sure? You can change limit (at least in MorphOS) up to 16384 files although I dont recommend doing so. (Using large .recycled dir fragments disk very fast.)

Never use this option (always have it switched off) and yes the docs clearly state that "up to 350 file" can be stored in this special file recovery drawer...

To be honest I don't see the point in it as it's very rare if ever I delete a file by accident or need to recover something I have deliberately deleted. Seems to be a Mac thing and something I find useless too on the Mac having to empty it's Trash all the time, waste of storage space if you ask me...

[itix]

Never use this option (always have it switched off) and yes the docs clearly state that "up to 350 file" can be stored in this special file recovery drawer...

To be honest I don't see the point in it as it's very rare if ever I delete a file by accident or need to recover something I have deliberately deleted.

It can be useful when coding. Sometimes when I have edited some text file I might get strange idea to check again what original was 20 revisions ago.

Generally I dont see any reason to restore deleted files. Maybe when I accidentally overwrite something but anyway.

Seems to be a Mac thing and something I find useless too on the Mac having to empty it's Trash all the time, waste of storage space if you ask me... :-)

There is Trashcan in Amiga Workbench although I dont know anyone using it.

[Thorham]

The PFS Vs SFS reminds me of the whole VHS Vs BetaMax thing, VHS (PFS) may a have won out in the end but BetaMax (SFS) was technically superior and yet it lost...

And why exectly is SFS better than PFS? I'd like to know, because I want to move to PFS

[Framiga]

anybody interested about the amount of fragmentation on a SFS partition, download this tool:

http://aminet.net/package/disk/misc/sfscheck

SFSCheck DEVICENAME: FRAGLIST

in a shell

[Franko]

And why exectly is SFS better than PFS? I'd like to know, because I want to move to PFS

Well I would have thought my opening post in this thread along with some of the others would have made that clear why in my opinion SFS is better, perhaps you should re-read (or even just read them) as there is no point in me repeating them...

PS: I you wanna move to PFS then what's stopping you and why ask me when there are plenty of other threads on PFS...

[Franko]

It can be useful when coding. Sometimes when I have edited some text file I might get strange idea to check again what original was 20 revisions ago.

There is Trashcan in Amiga Workbench although I dont know anyone using it.

I always make a backup of any source code no matter how trivial it may seem at the time, as quite often parts of the code come in handy for other projects...

Trashcan on Workbench now there's a blast from the past, other than being annoying when formatting a disk and having to untick the box when formatting something, I haven't seen that thing since the late 80's...

[itix]

I always make a backup of any source code no matter how trivial it may seem at the time, as quite often parts of the code come in handy for other projects...

Sure, I have backup in CVS/SVN repository but not something what you edited 5 minutes ago. Now if I could get an access to BlacksEditor source code I'd like to make some improvements there regarding backup feature...

Speaking of that does anyone know what happened to author and if source code could be obtained still?

[Franko]

Sure, I have backup in CVS/SVN repository but not something what you edited 5 minutes ago. Now if I could get an access to BlacksEditor source code I'd like to make some improvements there regarding backup feature...

Speaking of that does anyone know what happened to author and if source code could be obtained still?

Now that's the kinda thing where ReSource comes in very handy, you could just disassemble it into it's source code and modify it to have make a timed backup...

Course it would be a lot simpler if you got hold of the source code from the author...

[Thorham]

Well I would have thought my opening post in this thread along with some of the others would have made that clear why in my opinion SFS is better, perhaps you should re-read (or even just read them) as there is no point in me repeating them...

I have, which is why I'm asking the question The only true advantages I can see based on your posts are the huge file sizes, huge partitions and huge drives, which are all things I don't need.

1) I don't need terabytes of hd space (I have a hard time filling up my peecee's 500 gig drive ).
2) I don't need terabyte partitions (64 terabyte, haha, right :lol:).
3) I don't terabyte files (what possible use is this?).

While those are clearly advantages when you do need them, what I want to know is this: Where is the support software? Things can go wrong. Perhaps not often, but when they do, having some support software is certainly not a luxury. What about bugs? I've read some bad things about SFS.

So, apart from what you've mentioned, why is SFS truely better than PSF? You see, if it really is better, then I'm not moving to PFS, because it's a hassle to re-setup my system

[Franko]

I have, which is why I'm asking the question The only true advantages I can see based on your posts are the huge file sizes, huge partitions and huge drives, which are all things I don't need.

1) I don't need terabytes of hd space (I have a hard time filling up my peecee's 500 gig drive ).
2) I don't need terabyte partitions (64 terabyte, haha, right :lol:).
3) I don't terabyte files (what possible use is this?).

While those are clearly advantages when you do need them, what I want to know is this: Where is the support software? Things can go wrong. Perhaps not often, but when they do, having some support software is certainly not a luxury. What about bugs? I've read some bad things about SFS.

So, apart from what you've mentioned, why is SFS truely better than PSF? You see, if it really is better, then I'm not moving to PFS, because it's a hassle to re-setup my system

Well if it's not for you then you don't need to know anymore about it...

As for software support, where is the software support for thousands of programs that have been written for the Amiga...

Just like most things Amiga for many years I and many others have got by without software support (as far as I'm aware there has been no software support for PFS for years either until recently)...

Again I've explained my reasons for preferring SFS and you've answered those yourself in your post so really other than that there is nothing much more I can or need to say other than been using it for years now without problems or bugs...

[Karlos]

I use SFS on several of my systems, none of which have hard drives approaching anything like 2TB, so it's pretty academic from over here

[Franko]

I use SFS on several of my systems, none of which have hard drives approaching anything like 2TB, so it's pretty academic from over here

As I say the biggest drives I use are 1TB and I doubt I'll ever need a 2TB let alone bigger drives on my Amiga's, so like you say it's a pretty academic point to be honest...

My main & only reason for using SFS was simply because it could handle bigger than 4GB files and that is something I need...