Re: Partioning SCSI drives larger than 130 Megs?

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Supertimer <supertimer@aol.com> wrote:

> spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) wrote:
> 
> >    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.

I've had at least three instances of file system corruption on HFS
volumes on the IIgs.  I don't trust it for anything I want to keep.

> >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.

I do, and both Mitch and I have accelerators (his is faster than mine).

The really annoying point is every time you write a large file there is
a VERY long delay before the write actually happens.  It is as if the
IIgs is running through some major software gymnastics to work out where
the file will end up on the disk.  Once it actually gets writing, it is
very fast, but in total it is considerably slower than ProDOS.

> >- Incompatible with ProDOS 8 (and some GS/OS) applications
> 
> I have never run into a GS/OS application that is incompatible.

GSCII+ doesn't encode properly if you output to an HFS volume.  Other
than that, nothing comes to mind offhand, though something is nagging my
memory...

I tend to use HFS for file archiving rather than directly, so I'm not
likely to encounter any problems with application incompatibility.

> >- Not accessible from ProDOS 8
> 
> So what?  We IIGS users (at least serious ones) rarely use
> 8-bit software.

AppleWorks classic is the Apple II application that I have used more
than any other (not counting system software), up until I switched most
of my computer usage over to the Mac.  Well, Spectrum, Merlin 16+ and
ORCA might have come close.

> For the few ones that we do use, the boot partition is more than enough.

I have ten ProDOS partitions on my IIgs (eleven if I count the single
volume copy of the System 6.0.1 installer), plus 4 HFS.  I could
probably get by with just four ProDOS partitions, if I trusted HFS
enough.

> >- 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!

FAT32 is better because the increase doesn't come in until you get to
gigabyte sized volumes.  FAT16 or smaller is just as bad as HFS.
Anyway, I don't regard this as a problem either.

> >- 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.

I have a few volume repair programs, and I can fix damaged partitions by
hand given a sector editor.  :-)

No chance for HFS - too complex.

Just identifying that there is a problem can be a problem with HFS.  How
do you know that the middle of some large file hasn't been overwritten
with another one?


Anyway, to each his own, I say.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand