Re: Partitioning 730mb HD on GS -- need advise!

[plague@drift.winternet.com (Kent Squires)]

In <12JAN199519025250@vax2.concordia.ca> spector@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector) writes:

>	I'm planning to order a hardrive for my IIgs within a few weeks
>and it looks as though the I'll be ordering a Quantum L-730 megabyte HD.
>Yes, I agree this size is overkill for a IIgs, but considering the cost
>is under $350 US (external), I figured why not! Besides, a smaller size 
>such as 270mb will cost almost as much -- an external is about $250.
>Now then, the big question is how shall I partition this beast...? 

Overkill? Naw....I have 3 hard drives on my GS for a total of 985MB

>	I will be connecting the drive to my RamFast SCSI card, it's
>a Revision D with the latest v3.01ez ROM (256k cache). I know the RF
>can handle a maximum of 12 partitions _online_ but my concern is how
>many partitions can it create in total and keep offline? Obviously 
>avoiding HFS completely is impossible with a drive of this size, but I'd
>like to keep the size of any HFS partition(s) at a minimum. The reasons
>for my dislike of HFS are clear: No Apple II utilities to backup, repair,
>undelete or optimize. Or for that matter, it's being slow in accessing the
>drive, files taking up more space, no P8 compatibility and it's rumoured
>quirks where it does strange things on a IIgs (ie, eating files, corrupting
>directories, etc). A massive HFS partition is a _very_ unattractive option
>at this time, so I'd like to create as many ProDOS partitions as possible.
>Is it a reasonable solution to create 20 ProDOS partitions (640megs) and
>a 1 HFS partition (90megs), where I'd keep no more than 12 partitions
>active at a time? GS/OS can handle 64 partitions, but what about the
>RamFast SCSI? I'm not too famillar with it's dealing with partitions.

>	I believe my current setup may affect partition handling, so it's
>likely I'll have to modify it somewhat to deal with so many partitions:

>Apple IIgs ROM 3 (w/5.125megs RAM)

>Slot 1: Empty
>Slot 2: MDIdeas SuperSonic Stereo + digitizer
>Slot 3: ZipGS 8 MHz/16k 
>Slot 4: ComputerEyes GS
>Slot 5: Empty (two Apple 3.5 drives mapped here)
>Slot 6: Empty (one Apple 5.25 drive -- currently disabled)
>Slot 7: RamFAST SCSI 256k RevD/v3.01ez 
>Mem ex: RAM-GS 4mb card

>I'm planning to remove one of my 800k Apple 3.5 drives and continue to
>leave my Apple 5.25 disabled (slot-6 set to 'Your Card'). I usually keep
>a RAM Disk (/RAM5) active, though I may consider removing it to free up
>another device. In the near future I may be adding CD-ROM, Second Sight
>(or TR), VOC and Quickie, though the only definate card is the SS/TR for
>the moment. As far as I can tell, only the CD-ROM drive would act as 
>another device.

>Looking over the above, can someone *please* suggest how I go about
>partitioning a 730mb HD on this setup? 

Ummm...I think you have a good setup if you want to keep all partitions
ProDOS.  But, with a drive that size, I'd really recomend one or two
HFS partitions.  Activating and deactivating partitions is going to
bet to be a big pain the ass.  Like I said before, I have a total
of 985MB on my system, and here's how I have it set up.

I have a total of 9 partitions:

	4 ProDOS (all 4 are 32MB each)
	   1 - System partitions (boot volume) 
	   1 - Contains programs like ProTERM 3.1 and AppleWorks 3.0
           1 - Games
           1 - GNO/ME

	5 HFS Partitions
	   101MB - for GS specific Telecom programs, utilites,
	  	   and word processing programs
        100.75MB - for my astronomy programs and demos
        156.31MB - for all my graphics programs (Prism, SHR Convert,
		   etc.)
        156.31MB - for holding files after downloading until I can
		   get them to where they belong.
        312.63MB - for keeping MODs and sound programs

No, this does not add up to 385MB, but remember, when you format a
large drive, you get a little less than the actual drive size.