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Amiga computer related discussion => General chat about Amiga topics => Topic started by: sim085 on December 08, 2009, 10:52:32 AM

Title: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: sim085 on December 08, 2009, 10:52:32 AM: Hi,

I was wondering, on Workbench 3.1, is the hard disk size limit 2GB as whole? or 2GB per partition? Also does this apply to all partitions or only to the partition where Workbench is installed?

Regards,
Sim085
Title: Re: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: Lando on December 08, 2009, 12:05:00 PM: The limit is 4gb for partition and/or drive. After this it will start to 'wrap around' and overwrite data at the beginning of the drive.
Title: Re: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: gertsy on December 08, 2009, 12:05:46 PM: Workbench or the OS should go on the first Partition. 250-500MB is heaps for a System partition.
Less than 4GB partitions are fine for OS 3.1.
On my A1200 and A4000 I have 8 GB drives with a 500MB System and 2 x 3.6GB Partitions.
OS 3.1 on the A1200 and 3.9 on the A4000.
(Man... Lando guzumped me by seconds)

Goodluck.

gertsy
Title: Re: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: sim085 on December 08, 2009, 12:30:24 PM: Thank you very much for the replies. from your answers I can understand that I can have as many partitions as I like as long as none of them are more then 4Gb large.
Title: Re: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: Thomas on December 08, 2009, 12:37:03 PM: Quote
On my A1200 and A4000 I have 8 GB drives with a 500MB System and 2 x 3.6GB Partitions.

This won't work without additional software. Kickstart 3.1 with its built-in IDE driver and the built-in file system cannot access outside of the first 4GB of the drive. The IDE driver recognises drives up to 8GB, but if you create a partition in the upper 4GB it will use the same space as other partitions inside the first 4GB, so the partitiions will overwrite each other.

There is FFSTD64 on Aminet which patches the file system to allow to use the full 8GB (even as one partition, no need to make a smaller system partition). You need to patch the IDE driver as well to get more than 8GB. IDEfix97 is such a patch for the IDE driver, for example. OS 3.5 and 3.9 come with new IDE drivers, too.

Bye,
Thomas
Title: Re: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: Thomas on December 08, 2009, 12:38:18 PM: Quote from: sim085;533064
from your answers I can understand that I can have as many partitions as I like as long as none of them are more then 4Gb large.

NO !

Read my above reply. It's dangerous to create partitions outside the first 4GB of the drive.
Title: Re: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: Marcb on December 08, 2009, 12:38:27 PM: It depends on the file system you are using,
if you're using FFS then the hard disk limit is 4gb.. partitions need to be under 2gb but the entire hd used can't be over 4gb..

Edit: Thomas was too quick for me :-)
Title: Re: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: sim085 on December 08, 2009, 01:02:43 PM: Thanks Thomas.

So with out any fixes, the maximum is 4GB, while with fixes the maximum is 8GB. am i right now? (I am reffering to total size of hard disk)
Title: Re: What is the hard disk size limit?
Post by: Thomas on December 08, 2009, 01:32:48 PM: Quote
while with fixes the maximum is 8GB

With one fix (file system) the maximum is 8GB. With two fixes (file system + IDE driver) the maximum is 128 GB. Only with OS 3.9 + BB2 + fixes from Aminet more than 128 GB is possible.

All that only applies to the internal IDE controller. Other controllers have different limits (although the 4GB limit is common to all drivers and file systems).