Hi,

Last week I did it. Well, I mean start using SFS of course!
Everybody whom using SFS was very positive about the speed of it.
Ok, far so good. But I like to try and test it myself!!

And I did it:

I had 3 partitions on my 80GB HD.
SYS: 7.5GB
DH1: 20GB
DH2: ~50GB
All the partitions had FFS v52.2 as a file system with a blocksize of 2048.

To create a SFS partition I used the Media Toolbox to reduce the DH2: partition and made 2 new SFS v1.267 partitions with a blocksize of 512.

New situation:
SYS: 7.5GB FFS blocksize 2048
DH1: 20GB FFS blocksize 2048
DH2: 35GB FFS blocksize 2048
DH3: ~6GB SFS blocksize 512
DH4: 8,5GB SFS blocksize 512

I wanted to know how long it took in seconds to copy a couple of files from and to a SFS partition.
So I made a drawer containing 54 files with a size of ~5MB each (260MB total).
And I made a drawer containing 2 files with a size of 300MB each (600MB total).

The test with the 54 files is called 'test1' and 'test2' is the test with the 2 files of 300MB each.

In the results below, the complete drawer is copied between partitions.

Results:
From FFS to FFS partition:
Test1 took 69 sec
Test2 took 167 sec

From SFS to SFS partition:
Test1 took 53 sec
Test2 took 128 sec

From FFS to SFS partition:
Test1 took 53 sec
Test2 took 130 sec

From SFS to FFS partition:
Test1 took 79 sec
Test2 took 184 sec

You may understand that I'm a SFS user by now!

_________________
µA1c OS4.1 (with a dead powersupply (powersupplied))
A500

@Mopemen

Welcome to the SFS universe - good, isn't it?

_________________
After a decade away from the scene, I am back!

I have never used SFS on any of my Amiga's.

Can someony please tell my the ups and downs with SFS?
I can see that the transfer speed is better, but is there no downside to SFS (unstable, compatability issues etc.) ?

@Micam

there is no recovery tool for SFS, at least for 68k and os4 but there is one for morphos users.

@lionstorm

probably because you will not need one!

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@Micam

As mentioned, if something goes bad there isn't much you can do. But on the other hand it's rock stable here so...

As usual... worried? Do backups... got the sources for AmiZilla? Oh PLEASE do a backup... only your partitions with some programs? Well... people are using SFS and do you see poeple having lots of problems? The answer should be no so...

In the end it's up to you offcourse...

@Mopemen

You had the same amout of buffers on both partitions?
BTW, Olaf said the fs_plugin_cache should be used on the FFS2 partition.

Oh well, even with FFS2, it will fly on the Sam!

Last edited by elwood on 19-Apr-2007 at 08:30 PM.

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Philippe 'Elwood' Ferrucci
Sam460 1.10 Ghz
AmigaOS 4 betatester
Amiga Translator Organisation

@Mopemen

128 seconds for two 300MB files???? Damn slow!
A PC with Windows would probably do it in less than 15 seconds, not more than 20
seconds anyway.

_________________
/Harry

[SOLD] µA1-C - 750GX 800MHz - 512MB - Antec Aria case

Avatar by HNL_DK!

@Samwel

I just tried copying a ~560 MB file from one SFS partition to another and it took 75 s. A ~390 MB file on my laptop takes 35 s under winxp. That's ~7.5 MB/s under OS4 and ~11.1 MB/s under windows. My A1's hard-drive is set to UDMA 5 (100MB/s theoretical max). No idea what the IDE modes are for the drive in my laptop, probably UDMA 5 as well.

I wonder what's causing the lower performance, my CPU load is low during the copy so it isn't CPU load that's causing the difference. The IDE bus speed isn't the only limiting factor, the drive's write speed matters too. Once again, I have no idea what the specs of both drives are. Maybe it would be faster if the size of the blocks being transferred were increased to reduce the amount of times that the disk head has to move from one cylinder to another.

@mopemen
Assuming that you're using Amiga OS4 you might want to check your IDE settings using the UBoot prefs editor, or IDEtool.

Hans

Last edited by Hans on 19-Apr-2007 at 10:54 PM.

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@Hans

You compare a slow 5400rpm 2.5" harddrive of a laptop to a 7500rpm 3.5" harddrive
of a desktop Amiga. That's not fair.
Do the test again with a desktop PC.

_________________
/Harry

[SOLD] µA1-C - 750GX 800MHz - 512MB - Antec Aria case

Avatar by HNL_DK!

@Mopemen

You also need to take into consideration where the data your copying is physically on the disk as well, as hard disks vary in speed between the middle and the edge of the disk. The 7200rpm SATA disk in my computer varies between 53MB/s and 29MB/s because of this.

@Samwel

Quote:

Samwel wrote: @Hans You compare a slow 5400rpm 2.5" harddrive of a laptop to a 7500rpm 3.5" harddrive of a desktop Amiga. That's not fair. Do the test again with a desktop PC.

Actually I doubt that the hard-drive in my A1 is a 7500 rpm drive. Regardless, I don't have a desktop PC to perform the same test on. One PC is enough for me.

Another interesting test to perform would be transferring large files between two separate hard-drives. Sadly, I don't have two hard-drives in my Amiga (or laptop of course) to do this.

Hans

Last edited by Hans on 20-Apr-2007 at 01:20 AM.

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@Rit

Moreover, two other factors are even more significant, for the same reason:
1) Fragmentation, as if basically changes your file copies from sequential reads/writes to random access.
2) Copying from the same drive, which makes the system read until it fills the buffer, seek to the target and write until it fills the buffer, again making the the read/writes pretty much "random" access.

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@All

I have 2 PATA drives in my micro using the onboard IDE controller. Each is set at UDMA5 & all partitions are SFS. The block size 512, buffers 500, maxtransfer maximum (FFFFFFF), mask anymemory (7FFFFFFF).

A 700MB file took 56 seconds to copy from 1 partition to another on the same drive & the same amount of time to copy to the other drive. This comes out to about 25MB/sec.

I did notice, with very large files, a 1000 buffer shaved a couple of seconds off the transfer time. Increasing the block size doesn't help & could slow transfer times down.

Last edited by sundown on 20-Apr-2007 at 02:58 AM.

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Hate tends to make you look stupid...

@Micam

There are other not mentioned features of SFS:
- If you overwrite, or delete a file, you can always get back the previous/deleted file(s!) by entering the ".recycled" directory on the root of the partition in question.

Sometimes I have accidently deleted, and I frequently overwrite a file by the wrong contents, but on the FFS partition I need to go to h*ll and back to get my lost file back. On SFS I just enter .recycled and pick it back. I can go back many many versions depending on your settings and how full the partition is. PFS has the same feature. There the hidden directory is called ".deleted" IIRC.

- SFS is also faster because it doesn't move the HD head so much. This reduces noise and prolonges the life of the disk. It also aimes at creating as little framentation as possible.

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- Don't get fooled by my avatar, I'm not like that (anymore, mostly... maybe only sometimes)
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@Mopemen

Nice Avatar.

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Amiga_Os3-Os4-Mos User!!!

@elwood

Quote:

You had the same amout of buffers on both partitions?

Ehm... I think so... I'll check it when I'm home.
I didn't checked the buffer size on the SFS or FFS partitions. I don't know about the default buffer size or the recommended size.
When I installed OS4 for the first time, I used the install-guide on www.os4.co.uk. The mentioned buffer size in this guide is 100. Is this too small?

What is the recommended buffer setting on a SFS partition?

Maurice

Edit: All the partitions had 600 buffers.

Last edited by Mopemen on 20-Apr-2007 at 03:24 PM.

_________________
µA1c OS4.1 (with a dead powersupply (powersupplied))
A500

@Samwel

Quote:

128 seconds for two 300MB files???? Damn slow!

Yes, I agree but it is quite faster than a FFS copy.
Maybe a bigger buffer will speed things up.

@sundown

Quote:

... a 1000 buffer shaved a couple of seconds off the transfer time.

The bigger the better? Or is a very big buffer not advisable?

_________________
µA1c OS4.1 (with a dead powersupply (powersupplied))
A500

@Condor

Quote:

Nice Avatar

Thanks! I was browsing on IMDB when I saw the image of the movie 'Grim Reaper'.
I had to use it as an avatar.

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µA1c OS4.1 (with a dead powersupply (powersupplied))
A500

@Deniil715

Quote:

- If you overwrite, or delete a file, you can always get back the previous/deleted file(s!) by entering the ".recycled" directory on the root of the partition in question. Sometimes I have accidently deleted, and I frequently overwrite a file by the wrong contents, but on the FFS partition I need to go to h*ll and back to get my lost file back. On SFS I just enter .recycled and pick it back. I can go back many many versions depending on your settings and how full the partition is. PFS has the same feature. There the hidden directory is called ".deleted" IIRC.

Wow! I thought was a delayed April Fools for a second but I tried and it's true!
I wonder what else I'll find if I actually read the manual!

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