Drive Updating

[MiAmigo]

A few of questions about 'modern' SCSI drives, and the A2000:

1). This week, I'd like to get a new SCSI drive for my machine. I know that the Amiga has to have an initial boot drive partition of no more than 2 gigs, but, overall, what is the upper limit of the total drive size it can take?

2). Is there such a thing as a new SCSI drive (such as a Cheetah) being 'too fast' for the Amiga hardware?

3). Are there any drive utilities available for backing up, and transferring of data from one drive to another, like Partition Magic, or Drive Image, or something like that, or will I have to do a complete reinstall?

I figure replacing my old 4.3 gig drive is the first step towards greater system stability, and, hopefully, one of the easiest things to do, so I'd like to get it out of the way before I get too much time and effort invested in customizing my OS3.9 environment.

[Hyperspeed]

Well I think HDToolBox is limited to 1Gig partitions, depends on
version I suppose.

The upper limit is 4.2Gb so you'd be risking it going to that or 4.3Gb
- it'll overwrite the first 103Mb!

Get a patch and maybe the latest HDToolBox (or Phase5 SCSIconfig for
the Synch/Reselection bits).

Never mix HDToolBox with SCSIconfig though, use one or the other - NOT
BOTH. They use different RDB layouts and will cause funny errors.

I think Amiga SCSI-2 can utilise Ultra-Wide with an adaptor. The
interface just modes down. Also, SCSI interfaces will talk
intelligiently depending on cable length. If you want to make them use
SCSI-1 use a 4M long cable.

:-D

I'm not sure about backing up but if you're on SCSI why not plug both
drives onto the chain and just copy over with DOpus.

Just another thing, make sure your SCSI connectors are shiny and clean
(no RF reflection) and make sure everything is neat and tidy with the
SCSI ID and termination.

Passive termination for SCSI-1, Active Termination for SCSI-2.
Passive = big resistors, Active is an IC (SCSI-IV kit).

[Ilwrath]

1) Depends on the SCSI controller and the scsi.device, I believe.

2) Probably not "too fast" but certainly can be incompatible.  There's a lot of revisions of SCSI, but most likely, you'll want a drive specifically for legacy SCSI applications.  Taking a high-end server HD and putting it in an Amiga isn't likely to give very good results.  SCSI is a very diverse standard, and not completely compatible.  I highly doubt an Ultra320 drive will work very well on an old SCSI-1 card.  Of course, now saying that, three people will stand up and swear it works great for them.  Still, I'd use caution when selecting a new HD.

3) copy clone source: target: all
I'm serious.  That should work fine.  It's what I've always done.  Provided you formatted and installed the boot RDB, you should be all set.

[kgrach]

@MiAmigo

The simple answer is this Buy PFS3 or download  SFS for free both give you the ability to use Hard Drives of any size and huge partition sizes. PLUS they are faster than FFS and you can no longer invalidate a hard drive. You can literaly pull the plug while copying a file and not invalidate your hard drive. PS I have tried that monuever to test thier claims and it actually works!!!

Why any Amiga user currently still uses FFS is really beyond me.

I currently use SFS with my A1 and I can tell you I recently mounted a 250 Gig HD with only one 250 Gig partition and it worked just fine.

The only problem I have ever encountered using PFS or SFS is on a GVP SCSI card as It DOES NOT FOLLOW THE RDB SPECIFICATIONS AS LAID OUT BY COMMODORE BACK IN THE LATE EIGHTIES.

In that case your boot drive must be a FFS partition but your others can be anything you like. If your are using OS3.9 and the new ROMupdates then you can also use larger size drives only your boot partition must reside in the first 4.3 gigs

Hope that help

Kgrach

[MiAmigo]

kgrach wrote:
@MiAmigo
The simple answer is this Buy PFS3 or download  SFS for free both give you the ability to use Hard Drives of any size and huge partition sizes. PLUS they are faster than FFS and you can no longer invalidate a hard drive. You can literaly pull the plug while copying a file and not invalidate your hard drive. PS I have tried that monuever to test thier claims and it actually works!!!
Why any Amiga user currently still uses FFS is really beyond me.
I currently use SFS with my A1 and I can tell you I recently mounted a 250 Gig HD with only one 250 Gig partition and it worked just fine.
The only problem I have ever encountered using PFS or SFS is on a GVP SCSI card as It DOES NOT FOLLOW THE RDB SPECIFICATIONS AS LAID OUT BY COMMODORE BACK IN THE LATE EIGHTIES.
In that case your boot drive must be a FFS partition but your others can be anything you like. If your are using OS3.9 and the new ROMupdates then you can also use larger size drives only your boot partition must reside in the first 4.3 gigs
Hope that help
Kgrach

That's fantastic news. As you can see, I am using GVP, and I don't care about having to use a smaller boot partition. I would like to be able to take advantage of the size and relative stability of a newerr drive.

[MiAmigo]

Wow. Reading all that just showed me I have a lot of catching up to do on the ins and outs of SCSI technology, past & present. I don't even know  if I have I or II. No wonder I've been having so much trouble with terminator issues. Guess I spent too much time with IDE devices...

[MiAmigo]

Also, I'm really interested in the new file systems. Can either one of them convert my current file system, w/o loss of data? As long as either would play nice with my GVP controller, I'm game.

[Piru]

@Kgrach

Uhm, are you *absolutely* sure AmigaoS 3.9 in any way helps giving >4GB access with GVP SCSI? I'm not.

To my knowlege the deciding factor is the firmware rom of the controller. If the firmware driver (gvpscsi.device) is too old, no filesystem can fix the 4GB limit.

[MiAmigo]

Piru wrote:
@Kgrach
Uhm, are you *absolutely* sure AmigaoS 3.9 in any way helps giving >4GB access with GVP SCSI? I'm not.
To my knowlege the deciding factor is the firmware rom of the controller. If the firmware driver (gvpscsi.device) is too old, no filesystem can fix the 4GB limit.

I may be completely off-base here, but...
Here's something I'm considering doing to hopefully make it possible to play some old games like Turrican. Disable automount on the GVP by opening jumper  9 then boot from a floppy with a (different?) scsi.device, and new, modified mount files. Theoretically, shouldn't this work for a new filesys as well?

[Hyperspeed]

So you've filled up 250Gb on a PFS disk and you accidentally delete a
load of files and want to salvage them or unformat.

DiskSalv won't work on anything other than a classic Commodore file
system!

Aren't you leaving yourself open to one hell of a vulnerability if you
don't have a recovery program/undeleter?

Come to think about it, does AmigaOS4 have a DiskSalv program with it?
What about a ReOrg style defragger and MSDOS style CheckDisk prog. The
HDToolBox bad-block mapper is woefully inadequate.

[Piru]

@Hyperspeed

So you've filled up 250Gb on a PFS disk and you accidentally delete a load of files and want to salvage them or unformat.

PFS3 max partition size is 100GB, so that'd mean 3 partitions on such a disk (100, 100, 50).

DiskSalv won't work on anything other than a classic Commodore file system!

That's alright since you don't need to use DiskSalv for PFS.

Aren't you leaving yourself open to one hell of a vulnerability if you don't have a recovery program/undeleter?

PFS3 comes with two salvage programs: DiskValid and pfsdoctor. Not that you ever really need them, unlike with FFS that nukes regularily.

PFS has .deldir feature, you have upto 992 deleted files available from there. Also, if you notice you did a mistake with large delete, you can just reboot quickly and the files will be back. PFS3 only writes changes to disk when the filesystem has been idle for about 2 seconds.

I have 320GB of PFS3 partitions, filled up with data. I am not worried.

[Hyperspeed]

You may have a new file system with PFS3 but it doesn't escape the way
the OS works.

Surely fragmentation is a big problem on a 250Gb disk and how do you
defrag that, let alone on a classic Amiga (with IDE interface).

It's an interesting concept but quickly switching the machine off if
you make a mistake is rarely thought of at the time. Personally I'd
feel more comfortable in knowing I could retrieve the file at any
time and even if it wasn't in some sort of `Recycle Bin'.

Maybe I should read up on it more, but anything not conforming to the
RDB standard may well not conform to other standards. Particularly
when burning a PFS3 partition to CD, putting one onto a solid state
disk or SCSI stuff.

Sounds a good setup for huge file serving machines but for day to day
work a small sub-1Gb disk would be much better. Just because a drive
is NEW doesn't mean it's more reliable...

Having said that though, Amiga owners are having to search on eBay for
drives these days so the chances of stumbling on a disk full of bad
blocks and worn out bearings is much higher.

I know there are adaptors to allow you to use IDE drives on SCSI, and
Ultra-Wide SCSI on SCSI-2 - it'd be nice to be able to walk into a PC
shop and buy a brand-new hard disk (with warranty, instructions)
instead of abandoned server disks floating about on auction sites.

:-)

[Piru]

@Hyperspeed

Surely fragmentation is a big problem on a 250Gb disk and how do you defrag that, let alone on a classic Amiga (with IDE interface).

With PFS3 you copy files around. Beatiful isn't it?

Maybe I should read up on it more, but anything not conforming to the RDB standard may well not conform to other standards. Particularly when burning a PFS3 partition to CD, putting one onto a solid state disk or SCSI stuff.

hm?
For CDs one uses ISO-9660 (with RockRidge or Joliet etc). Can't think of any application for using other filesystems on a CD.

PFS3 is fully RDB conform. You can use it like any other filesystem, solid state disk, SCSI etc. Even if there is no RDB support, you can still use mountlists to mount partitions manually.

Having said that though, Amiga owners are having to search on eBay for drives these days so the chances of stumbling on a disk full of bad blocks and worn out bearings is much higher.

True. Nothing helps if the disk dies, regardless of filesystem. There is no substitute for backups.

I know there are adaptors to allow you to use IDE drives on SCSI, and Ultra-Wide SCSI on SCSI-2 - it'd be nice to be able to walk into a PC shop and buy a brand-new hard disk (with warranty, instructions) instead of abandoned server disks floating about on auction sites.

I did just that with my A1200 BPPC SCSI. I had 100GB total IDE HDDs connected to the Blizzard PPC SCSI contoller. All PFS3, naturally.

[Hyperspeed]

It sounds excellent but DiskSalv has been an absolute life-saver over
the years.

I like the way FFS operates - it only invalidates if it's really
disturbed.

What does AmigaOS4 use, surely that is a benchmark of what the experts
think is best suited to the Amiga?

In the meantime, I will read up on PFS3 - I seem to remember reading a
review of PFS2 in Amiga Format and it didn't get a Gold Award.
Nevertheless I can't imagine running FFS on larger disks.

Come to think of it, a CD wouldn't use FFS would it. It's an
interesting area to explore.

I'm currently using DOpus 4.12 and that is incredibly slow with FFS,
maybe I should turn off verifying or something. It grinds the drive
head like a lathe.

:-D