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Scott L. Barber Scott L. Barber first posted this to Quadlist. It is reprinted with his permission.
The HFS format has an ability to hold a maximum of 65,536 files and allocation blocks. Lets say that you had a 1GB drive with that many files - each file could take up a 16k. Since we must deal with extremes, the minimum file size then is 16k. So, no matter how small a file is, it will always take up at least 16k on the disk. This was the infamous 2GB limit, where files could reach a minimum allocation maximum of 32k - hence 2GB maxed this. HFS was patched with System 7.5 to support 4GB partitions and to eliminate certain file type sizes - which is why empty folders take up 0k. But even so, files minimums are 64k, and with 7.6, 64GB partitions were allowed (1 MB allocations per file). Apple replaced this just recently with Mac OS 8.1 when they created HFS Plus, a variable block allocation system that is decided on format. Block sizes are reported as 2k, but are as small as 512 bytes in certain formats and at certain sizes. Unfortunately, 68k machines cannot support this new format properly, and no one really has decent utilities to deal with it (Norton chokes - Tech Tool Pro 2.0 is the only current package that deals with them right). Only 68040 machines can read them, and it's a processing hog to work with them, so I don't recommend HFS+ with a 68040.
Yep . . . it's lost - it can only handle 2GB drives. I'd have partitioned it out into a few partitions anyway . . . one for downloads, one for work apps, one for games - keeps one bad file from wiping out everything - just one partition . . . this is important if you download a lot from the internet, and if you play a lot of poorly written games that could toast a drive. By partitioning you're protecting worthless data from damaging a drive, and protecting worthwhile data from being wiped out. I even have a 50 MB cache partition just for Netscape - so that the cache folder doesn't blow up my boot volume one day. To give you an idea of what I mean . . . I have a 9GB drive. Here's how I have it partitioned out.
Now, I'm not trying to brag about the size of my drive -- I'm trying to teach - if you have a 1GB drive, I always format 250 MB out and carve up the rest into two or three pieces - 100 MB for download, 500 for work, and 150 for scratch space. The original 250 is for Boot Volume, so that the system folder toasting doesn't take out all your applications and force a reinstall. Hope this makes sense to everyone, and teaches a little about storage security. AddendumI wanted to add, with a quick explanation, just how I partitioned my drive, and in what specific order, and why.
Boot Volume was formatted first and carved out in the very beginning in setup. I took some time determining the exact size so that this partition couldn't accidentally be relocated in another spot in the physical drive location, because the first part of a drive is always on the outside of the hard drive platen. On the outside, data is accessed faster, as more blocks are located on outer tracks than inner tracks, so more data can be read per rotation (rotation on a hard drive is fixed). When you read that a maximum drive speed is 14MB/sec, it's always the measurement of reading the outer track. The innermost track may be 1/12th of this speed, simply because of the circumference (which is why AV drives spin faster, so that the inner tracks are more useful). I want the Boot Volume, and subsequently any data from the system folder needed, to be available as fast as possible compared to any other data on any partition of the drive. This will make the system more stable and more responsive, and nearly guarantees that there will not be timing failures due to slow drive access to the system folder. Next, the CD-R Master volume, my partition for cutting to my CD-R drive, is my next fastest priority. Since I must maintain a consistent high rate of data transfer, I wanted to make sure that the area being read on the drive wouldn't provide my CD-R drive any excuses to have a buffer underrun . . . again, this is a SCSI intensive process, and relies heavily on SCSI timing - I want to give a CD-R write all the possible advantages. Internet Download needs to be fast, so that there aren't write problems with multiple downloads. If I'm downloading 30 simultaneous files, I need to know that the constant reads and writes to multiple files from Netscape's buffer won't collide on the SCSI bus, or overflow the buffer and start backing up in the SCSI chain, this is one of the most common reasons I see Netscape lock up during a file download because Netscape doesn't have a large internal application buffer to handle overruns or holds from the media chain. Usually, this causes hiccups in the TCP/IP stack and throws up a broken pipe to force a re-download of the file. Pentium could go anywhere - I don't use it enough to care very much. It just happened to be the variable in the deck. It has higher priority than Scratch disk only because large sections of the partition are taken up by the VPC drive file, which I'd like a decent drive response out of when reading or writing inside the program. Scratch disk was the extra space available - it doesn't really count either, except I do desire that it has a higher priority than the next two partitions, simply because Photoshop accesses it so very often as it's scratch file - I want a quick response if I can get it. Work Drive is the last on the chain for several reasons. When
Applications are launched, delays are always in the initialization of
memory and application items, and are very rarely inhibited by the
drive speed. I want all my applications loaded on the slowest part of
the drive, so that I'm not tempted to save documents or large pictures
to the drive by accident, and being on the end of the drive, used
almost always as a read only partition, is damn near completely safe
from all of the other partition problems. If bad writes occur to the
Boot Volume, the chances of them bleeding over to the Work Drive are
nil, unless they damage all of the other partitions as well. Drive
failure rarely occurs on the inside tracks of a hard drive, meaning
this is the safest place for all my expensive applications that would
take me days to reinstall.
Quadlist, the listserv for users of 68040-based Macs. FAQ at <http://lowendmac.com/lists/quadlist.shtml> Related articlesRecent Online Tech Journal Columns
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