lgreen@pnet01.cts.com (Lawrence Greenwald) (06/01/89)
Well, I've gone and done it...I have upgraded my 2000 by adding the 1.3
autoboot ROM and changing from my A2090/ST251-0 (ST-506 type) combo to the
GVP 80-meg hard card...Autobooting is so nice!!
Disk performance figures (according to Dperf2) have gone from
AmigaFF: (40 meg FFS partition on ST251 drive)
Create Files: 6 files/sec. Directory Scan: 89 entries/sec.
Delete Files: 40 files/sec. Seek/Read Test: 101 seek/sec.
Read/Write Speed Test: (bytes/sec.)
Buffer: 512 Read: 100,016 Write: 20,132
Buffer: 4k Read: 115,685 Write: 79,054
Buffer: 8k Read: 143,013 Write: 90,927
Buffer: 32k Read: 171,672 Write: 115,685
Buffer: 64k Read: 182,933 Write: 126,212
Buffer: 256k Read: 184,478 Write: 132,195
to -
AmyFF0: (40 meg FFS partition on 80-meg hard card)
Create Files: 14 files/sec. Directory Scan: 115 entries/sec.
Delete Files: 44 files/sec. Seek/Read Test: 98 seek/sec.
Read/Write Speed Test: (bytes/sec.)
Buffer: 512 Read: 107,260 Write: 21,725
Buffer: 4k Read: 182,933 Write: 97,523
Buffer: 8k Read: 230,355 Write: 147,024
Buffer: 32k Read: 240,941 Write: 151,266
Buffer: 64k Read: 249,898 Write: 150,830
Buffer: 256k Read: 251,095 Write: 152,764
My initial experience on the wee beastie was to try and format a 5 meg OFS
partition (for booting) and 35meg and 40 meg FFS partitions. The install
software was very easy to follow (I decided to answer "NO" to default
install parameters (2 40 meg partitions) thinking that wouldn't let me
autoboot.
Well to my surprise, it made all three partitons FFS and it DID
autoboot...a check of the Mountlist showed what GVP does to allow all
partitions to be FFS *AND* be auto-bootable. Nice!
So with that learned, I went back and re-did the install (it checks to see
if you've already done it and then "undoes" it), this time selecting the
default configuration. It formatted very fast. (BTW, if you want one *BIG*
80-meg FFS disk, no problem...reply "NO" to default configuration question
and enter the full disk size to the "How big do you want partition 1?"
question...The GVP book needs to be updated on this, it still assumes you
want to create a boot disk)
All the above may be old hat to some people, but I felt it was worth
mentioning for those who are thinking of getting a GVP hardcard.
This brings me to my questions...
1) The install-created mountlist gave me a 2-sided drive with 32 sectors per
track and 1281 cylinders per logical drive. Should I change the mountlist
and reformat or (since it is a SCSI drive) should I leave well-enough alone??
The Mountlist for the drives created (DH0: and DH1:) are as follows:
DH0: Device = scsidev.device
Unit = 1 /* For HD with SCSI ID = 0, Capacity: 80.11MB */
Flags = 0
Reserved = 2
Buffers = 32
BufmemType = 4
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 32
LowCyl = 1 ; HighCyl = 1282 /* Partition 1, Size 40.06MB */
GlobVec = -1 /* Required for FFS */
StackSize = 4000 /* Required for FFS */
DosType = 0x444F5301 /* Required for FFS */
FileSystem = L:fastfilesystem /* Required for FFS */
MaxTransfer = 77abcdef /* (for Patch2090) */
#
DH1: Device = scsidev.device
Unit = 1 /* For HD with SCSI ID = 0, Capacity: 80.11MB */
Flags = 0
Reserved = 2
Buffers = 32
BufmemType = 4
Surfaces = 2
BlocksPerTrack = 32
LowCyl = 1283 ; HighCyl = 2562 /* Partition 2, Size 40.00MB */
GlobVec = -1 /* Required for FFS */
StackSize = 4000 /* Required for FFS */
DosType = 0x444F5301 /* Required for FFS */
FileSystem = L:fastfilesystem /* Required for FFS */
MaxTransfer = 77abcdef
#
2) With the hard card in place, I find I can no longer boot from a floppy
(either from power-up or three-finger salute)...the hard disk kicks in
every time. Any suggestion??
Thanks to anyone who cared to read my $.02 worth.
Larry Greenwald
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