PFS3 slow or fast?

[AmiDude]

I heared a lot of people talking about that PFS3 is much faster then FFS,
so I've installed PFS3 on my A1200/030 yesterday but SysInfo reports the
same speed (2.5MB p/s.) as with my old FFS DirCache setup.
My A1200 system; Blizzard 1230/50Mhz-64MB, 6GB Toshiba 2½" HD.
I also tried it on a 2GB Toshiba 2½" HD and 2GB SanDisk CF card with the
same results.
I'm using PFS3-020ds filesystem and the Identifier in HDToolbox is set to
PDS\3 - 0x50445303.
Is SysInfo obsolete and do I need another program that can measure the
exact diskspeed?
If so, what is the best disksspeed program to use?

[Karlos]

It's not generally the raw disk transfer rate that is being discussed when people compare filesystems (as it always tends to be limited by the hardware interface), but the speed of filesystem operations in general. In other words, how quickly does it scan directories, open files, move, delete and so on.

[AmiDude]

OK, thanks for the explanation, I understand. Do you know which program I can
use for measuring the speed of the filesystem?

[Franko]

Neither SFS or PFS3 should really be thought of as a way to speed up your Hard Disk, all they are really is alternative file systems to the Amiga's own OFS & FFS. They are mainly just a way of using larger file size, bigger partitions and bigger HDs than the Amiga's own ones allow you to do...

It's like Karlos has said the only real difference is in the access times...

The only real way to improve HD raw speeds are to install a hardware board like FastATA MK III or Blizzard SCSI...

Quick example:-

The 4xEDIE Buffered interface board will still only achieve max raw speeds of about 2.5Mb/s whether you run it on an 30 or 60...

While the FastATA MKIII will do raw disk speeds from about 3.8Mb/s on an 030 and 5.6Mb/s on an 060 equipped Amiga...

and with either board SFS or PFS3 won't give you any improvement over that...

[Karlos]

OK, thanks for the explanation, I understand. Do you know which program I can
use for measuring the speed of the filesystem?

There are some old tools, the name of which presently escapes me, that were able to specifically benchmark various facets of the filesystem. However, SysSpeed does have some tests, if I recall clearly.

If you really wanted to do a like for like comparison, the only real way to do it would be to format a partition as one file system, copy a load (many thousands) of files and directories on it and time how long it takes to copy them there in the first place, list them all (and any other routine tests you can think of) before finally timing how long it takes to delete them all. Then do exactly the same tests after reformatting the same partition with the new filesystem and compare results.

This won't give you an absolute performance ratio since you still have the constant time it takes to read all the data from the original source drive in the first step and the overhead of physically drawing and scrolling your console but if you are careful in running your tests (using exactly the same methods in each case) these contributing terms should be identical in each case. You could probably minimise their total contribution by redirecting the output of each test to NIL.

[Franko]

@ Karlos

SysInfo only gives a "Raw" speed test but it can give varying results at times...

SysSpeed has quite a few built in speed tests for HDs (reading/writing/raw/creating dirs etc...) and is a lot more useful and accurate...

There also a little CLI util called "DiskSpeed" that will give a quick result for a RAW disk  speed from either HDs or CD/DVD drives...

[AmiDude]

@ Karlos & Franko

Thanks for the information. Another question that puzzles me;
How do I reorganize a PFS3 partition that's fragmented? I could'nt
find any info about it in the PFS3 guides. :confused:

[Framiga]

look for PFSDefragTry on Aminet and read carefully the doc

http://aminet.net/search?query=pfs

ps- probably you already know but if you need to defragment your main boot partition, better to start your system from another/spare boot partition and defragment your main boot partition from there.

[matthey]

Here is typical SysSpeed results for my new hard drive setup using PFS3...

Create 1262 Op/s
Open 3056 Op/s
DirScan 16516 Op/s
Delete 1774 Op/s
Seek/Read 7770 Op/s

CreateFile 29.71 MB/s
WriteFile 32.10 MB/s
ReadFile 30.36 MB/s
RawRead 30.61 MB/s

The hard drive is a newer Maxtor Atlas 15k 16GB Ultra SCSI drive I bought new for $10 U.S.

Here is my old hard drive setup with SFS...

Create 775 Op/s
Open 2928 Op/s
DirScan 9548 Op/s
Delete 217 Op/s
Seek/Read 2204 Op/s

CreateFile 8.33 MB/s
WriteFile 9.26 MB/s
ReadFile 7.56 MB/s
RawRead 12.69 MB/s

This hard drive is an older Compaq PCWDE4550W 4GB Ultra SCSI drive. Yes, the new setup feels much faster. SFS has more bugs too like the slow delete speed on my system. It also seems to slow down more from fragmentation than PFS.

[Iggy]

That's encouraging. Piru has mention that this filesystem is being ported to MorphOS.
Looks like I have something to look forward to.

[AmiDude]

@ Framiga

Thanks for the link. I'll try PFSDefrag A.S.A.P.

[Rodomoc]

The only real way to improve HD raw speeds are to install a hardware board like FastATA MK III or Blizzard SCSI...
......
While the FastATA MKIII will do raw disk speeds from about 3.8Mb/s on an 030 and 5.6Mb/s on an 060 equipped Amiga...

I can confirm a performance increase with FastATA on an A3000.
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In general, I have not yet tried PFS. I am intrigued though because I have mostly heard very good things about it. It is on my list of things to try. It seems like the most I hear about it involve improved reliability and safety over the others. I have had good experience with SFS but will give PFS a go. Piru (MorphOS) thinks very highly of this PFS, and wasted no time in the initial porting of it for MorphOS.
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The new IceFS is coming into stream as well. I think a 68K port is planned for. It would be interesting to hear more of this one. Its developer is quite busy on it and has continually been updating it.

[AmiDude]

So, I tried PFSDefrag today, and it works fine (at least I guess, because I couldn't see any progress or (de)fragmentation). But however, it would be nice if someone would program a new version of PFSDefrag with GUI and progress display (Like REORG for FFS).