How many gig HD can I...

[Invisix]

How many gig HD can I setup with Workbench 3.1? The reason I ask is I need to install  Workbench 3.1 first then Amiga OS 3.5 (don't have 3.9 ... had it installed on thew Amiga 4000, but wanted to do a fresh install.)

I partitioned it for 3gigs but programs say not enough space and something like -100000k space available? So, what is the maximum I can partition at?

Thanks in advance.

[x56h34]

OS3.1 limits:

Max partition size 2GB.
Max drive size 4GB.

I suggest setting up a workbench partition of let's say 500MB and another 1GB partition just in case you need some extra space for temp files and then install 3.1 onto the 500MB partition and once you reach to 3.5 OS then you can update to all Boing Bags until you have the latest revision, and then access HDToolBox for the rest of your large HD setup/partitioning. You can probably delete the 1GB temp partition then, but make sure that you do not fiddle with the 500MB system partition!!! :-)

[leirbag28]

OS3.1 limits:

Max partition size 2GB.
Max drive size 4GB.


 Are you sure about this? I was under the impression
that you can use an HD higher than 4gb but that you have to make each parition a max of 4.3gb?
 I just bought a 40gb drive so I hope I am right :-)

[Jope]

If you use FFS and the unpatched scsi.device, then those are your limits.

You can use PFS3 directscsi version to get access to larger partitions, SFS should work too.

[Castellen]

[Thomas]

This is normal behavior with any software, no matterh which OS version you use. All above 2GB becomes negative and all above 4GB becomes very small.

There is only very few software which can deal with amounts above 2GB. Mainly the OS3.9 Workbench, nothing more that I knew of.

But why should anyone need a boot partition of more than 500MB ? AmigaOS needs about 30MB with everything one can think of installed.

Bye,
Thomas

[leirbag28]

 Come on People...........your really confusing the heck out of me.

 I know for sure that OS 3.1 can read partitions bigger than 2gig  using the regular FFS. I have a 3gig that I formatted it and read it and works fine, now I am sure it can read at least up to 4.3gig, Am I right?
someone who really knows please respond.

I do not wish to use SFS or PFS, just FFS

As I understand it and have been told you cannot make partitions bigger than 4.3gig if you had a drive like lets say.........20 gig.  in other words, you cant make two 10gig partitions with FFS but you can make 4.3 gig partitions.........is this correct?

[x56h34]

@leirbag28:

You may not notice any errors right away with a 3GB hard drive if partitioned in such a way that there is one partition larger than 2GB, however go ahead and try to partition your new 40GB hard drive with OS3.1 and see what happens.

If you try to create a partition larger than 2GB, what HDToolBox does in OS3.1 is start to overwrite from begining of the drive space after crossing the 2GB partition barrier.

Trust me, there is no way OS3.1 can use more than 4GB of your drive space. You must upgrade to at least OS3.5 to avoid this problem, or get a better filesystem.

I suggest upgrading to OS3.9 as it is miles ahead of 3.1.

[JetRacer]

You can't use FFS with large partitions because the disk validator (even with OS39 and BB2) can't handle it. If you get a single write error, then goodbye. Crash, reboot, crash, reboot, etc.

So atleast use SFS. It doesn't even get unvalidated. You can reset while writing something and the only effect is that the file you wrote is chopped off, not lost. It's that safe. It also got a salvage utility so you don't have to worry about not being able to use f.ex. Disksalv.

Also, SFS and PFS is multiple times faster than FFS. Using FFS with a new HDD is a bad move for performance. Reading your average download directory of +2000 files only takes a second or two using PFS/SFS. Using FFS it's more like >10 seconds.

Using a four gigabyte partition may work most of the time, but not all the time. Some software may use a signed 32-bit variable instead of an unsigned so one fine day you end up with a corrupted HDD.

[pVC]

"I know for sure that OS 3.1 can read partitions bigger than 2gig using the regular FFS. I have a 3gig that I formatted it and read it and works fine, now I am sure it can read at least up to 4.3gig, Am I right?"

Standard FFS from OS3.1 can't handle partitions bigger than 2GB and total used space from beginning of the HD more than 4GB. You can make partitions over those limits, but when you write data over those limitations you get trouble.

For example: if you have 20G HD and you make two 3G partitions like this: | 3G | 3G | unused space |
then you get trouble in two situations when you fill up those partitions with files. With first partition when you fill it up more than 2G and with second partition when you fill it up more than 1G (3+1=4, which was the limit of the total HD space).

So, if you want to use big HD without updating the filesystem (scsi.device too if used), you have to make partitions this way: | partitions | unused space over 4G |
For example: | 1G | 1G | 2G | unused space |

[Thomas]

I didn't say that partitions larger than 2GB are not possible. With FastFileSystem V44 partitions up to 8GB are possible IIRC and with SFS or PFS3 any size of partition is possible (up to 2TB or so).

But any program that calculates the space on a partition in bytes and does not specially take care will struggle above 2GB and fail above 4GB. Because traditional programming languages use 32bit signed integers and 2GB is more than fits into 31 bits (1 bit for sign) and 4GB is more than fits into 32 bits.

Only very modern programs take care of such large numbers.

The circumvention is simple: either don't check the free space on the destination disk or fill the disk until less than 2GB is left. Or don't create partitions larger than 2GB at all.

Bye,
Thomas

[pVC]

Usually it doesn't matter if the programs show false amount of free space or something like that. All programs work in practise anyway..

[HopperJF]

last i heard max partition size 4gb for workbench 3.1

[zipper]

With plain 3.1 FFS you can use bigger drives by patching with TD64 or NSD, check Aminet. But no fix tools except DiskMonTools and just quick format (don't remember if there is 64bit fixed format on Aminet).

[leirbag28]

"With plain 3.1 FFS you can use bigger drives by patching with TD64 or NSD, check Aminet. But no fix tools except DiskMonTools and just quick format (don't remember if there is 64bit fixed format on Aminet). "

 See this is what I am saying...........i know there is a way with OS 3.1, now I tried installing TD64 and NSD but im not sure they work, not even sure where to install them and how?

can I at leat take my 40 gig and make like 10 or 20 partitions  each 2gig in size?