Re: Partioning SCSI drives larger than 130 Megs?

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer) writes...

>spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:
>
>>    It is not as simple as that, it requires you find a ROM 00/01
>>motherboard that has the IIe keyboard and power connector pins on
>>the board (most only have bare solder pads) and then find a metal
>>base pan with the GS port cut outs. I suppose you could get pin
>>connectors to solder in and cut the base pan with a hacksaw, but
>>why bother?
>
>It is not that hard.  Just desolder the power and keyboard
>connectors from the IIe and install them on the IIGS
>motherboard.

    With Apple IIgs CPU boxes so inexpensive these days, to the
point they are often given away, why go through the hassle? Not
to mention your better off using a IIgs in its original case.
I can see no advantage putting a IIgs in a IIe case these days,
not even from a cost perspective (and it certainly can't be for
cosmetic reasons, the IIe case isn't too attractive).

>>It is also worth noting there is pretty much
>>zero use for a 500 MB hardrive in an Apple IIe, you can get by
>>nicely with a 20 MB drive (an Apple IIgs needs more obviously,
>>but a 200-300 MB drive is certainly comfortable).
>
>Well let me tell you that the last time I checked, I've filled
>up 500+ megabytes of my 1GB IIGS drive.  ;-)

    Well if you look at the size of applications (and games) that
have been written for the IIgs--as well as the number of programs
that have been hardcoded to run off floppy disk--you'll find that
200-300 MB is quite reasonable. Also keep in mind the GS doesn't
generate data files that large (even uncompressed digitized sound
recordings you create won't exceed 6-7 MB).

    I'm close to filling up my 330 MB hardrive (there is a lot of
unnecessary junk on it mind you) but I'm not at all feeling like
I'm pressed for space. In fact, if I were to make use of the HFS
partition and move SHK archives and programs I never use offline,
I'd be practically swimming in free space. It's not at all like
the situtation on my PC, where with 3.8 GB of space I'm running
out of room (it's not unusual for games to be 400-500 MB large).

>>    HFS has far too many limitations on the IIgs to be considered
>>a worthy alternative to ProDOS as a filing system (at least with
>>the current HFS.FST, and it is very unlikely it will be updated).
>
>I disagree.  I have had ZERO problems with my IIGS hard
>drive partitions, Zip disks, or floppy disks.  In fact, I hardly
>ever touch ProDOS anymore.  HFS works fine for me.

    Well I've never had any problem with 800K HFS floppy disks,
but I have heard plently of horror stories about using it with
hardrives and experienced some personally. Want to see just how
flakey HFS is? Copy files onto an HFS partition until you get
a "Disk Full" error, then go see what fun happens afterwards.
Just make sure it's on a scratch partition or that you have a
Macintosh handy to repair the damage.

>>Pros:
>>
>>- Large partitions (up to 2+ Gigabytes in size)
>>- Long descriptive filenames with few naming restrictions
>>
>>Cons:
>>
>>- Very slow for reading and writing (especially writes)
>
>I don't notice.  Maybe it is the accelerator.

    <Ahem> I'm running at 15 MHz and I can certainly notice a
difference in speed. Try copying several files from one ProDOS
partition to another, then do the same but this time pick HFS
as your copying destination. Also trying loading the same game
from both a ProDOS and HFS partitions, time it with a watch.

>>- Incompatible with ProDOS 8 (and some GS/OS) applications
>
>I have never run into a GS/OS application that is incompatible.
>For ProTERM, my only P8 program, I just install it on the boot
>partition (my only ProDOS partition).

    GScii+ NDA is one example. I recall doing a test awhile
back, copying all the games on my hardrive over to one of my
HFS partitions and quite a few GS/OS (or ProDOS 16) games 
would not run.

>>- Not accessible from ProDOS 8
>
>So what?  We IIGS users (at least serious ones) rarely use
>8-bit software.  For the few ones that we do use, the boot
>partition is more than enough.

    The only 8-bit program I continue to use is ProTERM 3.1,
yet I still continue to use ProDOS as my main filing system.
Access to/from 8-bit applications is the least of my worries. 

>>- File allocation units increase with partition size
>
>So what?  I suppose you think what FAT and FAT32 does
>is better?  They do the same thing!

    The newer revision of Windows 95 (OSR2) gets around that.
I have my 2.5 GB and 1.28 GB drives each formatted as one 
large partition and the file allocation size is no greater 
than if I used 256 MB partitions. There is a drawback however: 
older DOS applications (e.g. Norton Utilities) are not able 
to deal my partitions. Also, I find it frequently miscalculates
the amount of free space left on my drives. I haven't heard
of people running Windows 98 having this problem though.

    I'll bet the new HFS+ has a similar feature. I'm not up
to date on the latest Macintosh developments though, so I'm
not sure. Anyone here know?

>>- No IIgs HFS maintaince software (optimize, repair, undelete)
>
>Back up your hard disk.  Dude, really.  How many of us
>have ProDOS maintanace software?  I don't.

    If you want to take risks like that, go ahead, but I'm
not about to gamble with any important data and hope that
I made a recent backup. I have ProSel-16 myself, and it has
saved my neck a couple of times (I also like to defragement
my partitions once in awhile).

>>There are probably a few more issues I'm forgetting, but the
>>main one to keep in mind is *no HFS maintaince software* is
>>available for the IIgs. If something goes wrong, your in big
>>trouble. I have a Macintosh Plus handy to take care of this
>>if need be, but not everyone has a Mac. With my 330 MB drive,
>>I have 8 * 32 MB ProDOS partitions and the remainder as HFS
>>(72 MB or so, but I hardly touch that partition for the above
>>reasons).
>
>I've filled up 500+ MBs of my 1GIG drive and it would
>be a nightmare if I had to use only ProDOS.  I hardly
>ever touch ProDOS anymore!  I do have one ProDOS
>partition in addition to the boot one, but that one got
>QUICKLY filled up with archived csa2 threads.  For the
>serious IIGS user, ProDOS is simply not enough!

    There was one instance were HFS save me a lot of grief,
and it is one of the pros I forgot to mention. File sizes
are not limited to 16 MB, as they are with ProDOS.

    Why did I need to create files larger than 16 MB you
might ask? I had to send my hardrive back under warranty
*immediately* (Quantum already gave me a month's leeway)
and I had no practical means of getting my data off. So,
what I did was compress each partition using Shrink-It GS
(by file) and stored the 30-ish megabyte files on my HFS
partition. Next, using Spectrum, I null-modem transferred
them to my PC overnight (at 57.6K) and stored them on my
PC's hardrive. Later I did the process in reverse and had
a perfect restore of my hardrive when I got a replacement.
If not for HFS, I would have never been able to do this.

    I think HFS has its uses, but I can't consider using
it for a main filing system, it just would not work out.
I have wished for something in between ProDOS and HFS,
but I've long since given up hope of anything like that
happening (or even that the HFS.FST will be rewritten).

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca