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Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: mr_a500 on June 05, 2005, 11:52:21 PM
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My old harddrive got corrupted a few times using FFS (45.9), so with my new harddrive I thought I'd try out Smart Filesystem instead - to avoid the long validation of FFS and hopefully speed things up. I set up a test partition, but so far I haven't noticed a speed increase.
I heard some people say SFS is way faster, others had major problems with it. I want to hear from more people who actually use it regularly before deciding if I should use it.
Also, I've been testing version 1.58. Is there a newer version somewhere?
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Check for newer software veresion.
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short answer: YES
but long answer: if u like to take backups frequently then yes...if not ..NO.
anyway backup your SYS: regulary (like on a CDRW) and backup the critital other stuff regulary too and u wont bithc later on.
good luck.
ps:i have used SFS and PFS since 1996...havent touched FFS ever since.
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Hi,
I might be a tad out of date here, but I've been using AmiFileSafe '020+ for at least 8 years and I love it. Didn't this get renamed PFS or something?
-G
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Hi,
had same question. Will receive brand new A1200 any day from Vesalia and going to add Elbox FastATA1200 Mk.2 IDE controller or Elbox 4xEIDE'99 buffered IDE splitter and 100G 2.5" hard disk. Accelerator will be 50mhz 060 + 64mb fast ram.
Which filesystem would be fastest, which most reliable and which optimal for that spec?
Thanks guys.
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I'm using an A500 WB 3.1, KS 3.0, 33Mhz 020, 8Mb RAM, 2Mb Chip, 40Gb 2.5" 5400 RPM IDE HD.
I have just found a newer SFS v. 1.236. (bad numbering - I would have thought 1.58 newer than 1.236)
@lempkee
What do you mean about regular backups? Does that mean it is unreliable or easily corrupted?
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>bad numbering - I would have thought 1.58 newer than 1.236)
Yeah I hate that too.
Yes, AFS became PFS. Anybody have any opinions on PFS, based upon *actual long-term usage*? As I recall it gets it's speed in part from hogging cycles. So while you're doing a R/W you might notice other tasks slow down more than usual. I think AFS and SFS do similar. PFS does allow you to set the filenames to be X chars in length. Up to 107 chars IIRC. But you have to set that max figure though. I don't know how long the FileNote can be though.
Any ideas-- based in fact?
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Anybody have any opinions on PFS, based upon *actual long-term usage*?
I've used PFS, AFS, PFS2, PFS3 7-8 years at least, iirc even longer. Started with A1200, and now I use it in Pegasos II. I've never had any serious problems with it (like data lossage). I learnt years ago that using write disk cache app was a bad idea though (at least if it reorders disk writes, RO cache was ok though).
ATM I have 350GB data on PFS3 partitions.
PS. I once tried SFS. It would corrupt itself after writing 20GB data in one go. Tried it 3 times, nuked every time. Thus I haven't used SFS a lot myself, so I can't give you any ideas how well SFS and PFS3 compare.
I don't know how long the FileNote can be though.
79 chars, the standard length.
Regarding version numbers. That is how standard version numbers work. It's no decimal point, but version/revision separator:
version.revision
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Well I've been playing with SFS for a few days now and here are a few things I've noticed:
ABCdir (my favourite filemanager by far) crashes with filenames > 30 characters. This is not a fault of SFS, but I can't really do without ABCdir. I don't name files > 30 characters, but downloaded files could cause problems.
MUI screens don't close and then crash when clicking on screen depth. I don't know how the filesystem would start causing this, but it never happened on my other FFS HDs.
SFSsalv doesn't work on my 3Gb partition because it complains of not enough memory - with 6Mb Fast and 1.5Mb Chip free.
Overall, everything seems slower. It's a pity because I like the .recycled folder and the idea of not having to wait for validation.
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I didn't see any speed increase either. Both my FFS and SFS partitions get about ~10Mb/sec on my A4000. I use FFS for my Sys: part because I've had trouble with corruption in the past. But, SFS is used on all other volumes, mainly for LFN support (and the thought of validating a 20GB partition is not amusing).
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I didn't see any speed increase either. Both my FFS and SFS partitions get about ~10Mb/sec on my A4000.
Well, it is quite obvious that neither SFS nor PFS3 can make your hardware run faster, thus you will not see your absolute disk access speed to get faster.
However, disk access will be much faster when manipulating disk structures (manipulating lot of directories and files). Here any decent filesystem easily beat FFS hands down.
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adolescent - it's funny you should mention corruption on SYS:. Just as I was posting my last post, I started noticing weird things. It wouldn't post and my modem appeared to be spending far too long sending data and then IBrowse started acting strangely. I thought maybe I had a virus, so I ran VirusZ and the vector check showed 15 lines of garbage. I wiped the memory and virus-checked all files, then shutdown for a few minutes and tried again. The garbage was still there (not exactly the same). I booted into my backup Workbench partition (identical, but FFS) and the garbage was gone. I tested the SFS and the garbage was back. So I repartitioned and reformatted with FFS and now everything is fine. The MUI screen problem is fixed too.
Now I only have my 3Gb Work partition and internet cache/temp partition SFS until something screws up and I'll forget SFS ever existed.
Just wondering - how much memory does SFSsalv use when checking your 20Gb partition?
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SFS is nice enough (I use it a lot - except for my SYS: partition)
BUT!
make sure you are not using write caching on your HD. And with that I mean to turn off the drive firmware caching.
I got bitten by that once (when the disk lies and says it has written to the platters, but it hasn't and then *crash* or simply write reorder before a boot) resulting in a puckered SFS filesystem.
Getting write cache _really_ turned off was a bit of a {bleep} though. I had to combine two scsi tools and info from the drive manual (standard scsi page setup though) to fix my 18G drive.
Turning off write cache is a good idea whatever filesystem you use IMO.
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@Piru
This was merely a test using the diskspeed program and instructions included in the SFS package. Like most benchmarks, the results don't necessarily show the full picture.
BTW, this is on the CSMK3, which should theoretically be able of more. (If I'm to believe other's benchmarks)
@mr_a500
Luckily, I've never run SFSSalv on any of my large partitions. I tried on my old SYS: but it couldn't/wouldn't fix it so I just reformatted and restarted.