SmartFileSystem V 1.279 On The Amiga Some FACTS...

[Franko]

Seeing as how certain people seem to like presenting false claims based solely on their preconceptions of SmartFileSystem for the Amiga. I thought it only fair for those interested in this amazing free file system to be presented with some actual facts about SmartFileSystem Ver 1.279 so that they can judge for themselves if it would suit their needs...

SmartFileSystem Ver 1.279 is a free alternative file system for the Amiga that boast the following features with it's "new" SF2 style partitions...

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

Block Sizes From 512 to 32768 bytes...

File Names Of Up To 127 Characters...

File lengths Of Up To Several TB...

Partition Sizes Of Up To 64TB...

Supports Notification & ExamineAll...

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

If you need to read and write single file sizes of greater than 4GB (DVD ISO images for example) then SFS Ver 1.29 is the file system for you. I have been using SFS on a daily basis myself for the past 6 years now (version 1.279 for the past 4 of those) and have never had one lost bit of data or had any form of file or HD corruption in all that time...

SmartFileSystem Ver1.279 for OS3.x/68k or a PPC version for OS4 can be downloaded from the Authors own site here...

SmartFileSystem Ver1.279

[ChaosLord]

Everything in your message sounded really great!  I am sure that your stock in SFS will increase in value and you can soon retire a rich man.

But then I read this part:

Path Names Of Up To 255 Characters...

This sounds really terrible!
Why should pathnames be so short? :confused:
If a filename is 127 chars then that is half your path gone already!

Many music files have 127 char filenames.  If you have some mp3s buried down several dirs deep then you can easily exceed this pathname limitation.

I actually exceeded the 255 char pathname limitation back around 1989 using only 31 char filenames!  This particular pathname limitation was due to a bug in Intuitracker (a popular modplayer back in prehistoric times before The Great Hippo came down from heaven and saved us all


Does PFS3 have this same limitation?  I hope not!


And now, to show that I am almost half as smart as Piru  I shall point out that just because SFS "allows" 127 char filenames does not mean that anyone using AmigaOS 1.0 to 3.999 can actually use 127 char filenames.  AmigaOS(tm)(c)(p) has a built in limit of 107 chars.

Does the 107 char limit still exist in MOS, OS4 and AROS?  I am willing to bet that the true answer is Yes.

[Franko]

@ Chaoslord

I think the new author forgot to change that part of the doc when he took over writing SFS 1.277 onwards, as I use it myself and even on some PC DVDs/Cd/s with path names a lot longer than 255 bytes it works just fine...

(I know the longest path/filename that I've ever came across was 1002 bytes in length and it worked fine with SFS)...

As for the 107 Char length of file names never ran into any problems with them on WB3.5 or 3.9, Only time they cause problems are in really old programs that are "hard" coded to only read up to the old 30 char limit...

Even the Amiga DOS "copy" command in 3.5 and 3.9 can handle these long filenames

[ChaosLord]

When I wrote software in the A4000+ days I typically reserved 1023 bytes for pathnames.   But in the old A500 days I only reserved 255 bytes.

[Franko]

When I wrote software in the A4000+ days I typically reserved 1023 bytes for pathnames.   But in the old A500 days I only reserved 255 bytes.

When I disassembled DirWork 2.1 and recompiled it, the original only had a buffer to allow up to 256 chars, so based up the longest one I had ever came across (1002 chars) I played on the safe side and changed the buffer to 2048 chars (think that should be enough... ) ...

[digiflip]

whats the pros cons compared to the open sourced pfs system?

[Franko]

whats the pros cons compared to the open sourced pfs system?

If you're the picky type who thinks a few milliseconds in speed difference here and there are important then PFS3 is probably for you...

If on the other hand you won't notice a few milliseconds fly past and want to use really big HDs and huge partitions and require to be able to read and write files of greater than 4GB in size then SFS is the only way to go...

[mongo]

Partition Sizes Of Up To 64TB...

Only if you have a hard drive with 16384 byte sectors.

[Franko]

Only if you have a hard drive with 16384 byte sectors.

Not 16384 sectors, the docs clearly state that for a 64TB drive you need to set the sector size to 32768 ...

[mongo]

Not 16384 sectors, the docs clearly state that for a 64TB drive you need to set the sector size to 32768 ...

The number of sectors is an unsigned 32 bit value, so the maximum value is 2^32 - 1, which is 4294967295. Multiply that by the sector size (32768, according to you and the docs), and you get 140737488322560, which is 128TB.

But that's irrelevant because you can't set the sector size. It's fixed at 512 bytes, which limits you to 2TB.

I'm pretty sure Piru mentioned this to you before...

[Franko]

The number of sectors is an unsigned 32 bit value, so the maximum value is 2^32 - 1, which is 4294967295. Multiply that by the sector size (32768, according to you and the docs), and you get 140737488322560, which is 128TB.

But that's irrelevant because you can't set the sector size. It's fixed at 512 bytes, which limits you to 2TB.

I'm pretty sure Piru mentioned this to you before...

And just like PIRU you are 100% WRONG I'm afraid and just like Piru you can quote all the figures you want, until you try it and prove it doesn't work then no matter what both of you say, then sorry but your both completely wrong in this case...

PS: Dunno why yourself and Piru keep saying the sector size is fixed at 512 bytes... read this...

Disk Sector Sizes

Lets just say I use it, it works like the author say without fault and no offence but I'm inclined to believe the author (and my own experience with it) over folk who've never used it (and in Pirus case who "doesn't need to read the docs")...

[Thomas]

PS: Dunno why yourself and Piru keep saying the sector size is fixed at 512 bytes...

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.

[LordSpunky]

Such an amateur you all make me feel. I don't think I would even know how to change the file system anyway..........hmmmm

[Piru]

Dunno why yourself and Piru keep saying the sector size is fixed at 512 bytes.

The hardware block size is what matters here and you cannot change that.

You can of course change the filesystem block size as much as you want, but it doesn't help much if you can't even partition the HDD (with full capacity).

[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.