jtn@zodiac.ADS.COM (John Nelson) (01/08/90)
Are there any probl;ems with connecting 300 megabyte disks (.vis. 345 Maxtor or Imprimis/Wren) to the Macintosh? Can the Finder actually handle that much space? Do I need to do anything funny with partitioning the disk or can it be just one big partition. What if I do partition the disk? Can the Finder open each parititon as a seperate volume? I'm looking for a new (big) disk for my new machine. Can the IIx power supply handle the power requirements of big disks like this? Even with let's say 3-4 Nubus boards installed along side? Thanks. -- John T. Nelson UUCP: sun!sundc!potomac!jtn Advanced Decision Systems Internet: jtn@potomac.ads.com 1500 Wilson Blvd #512; Arlington, VA 22209-2401 (703) 243-1611
truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) (01/09/90)
jtn@zodiac.ADS.COM (John Nelson) writes: >Are there any probl;ems with connecting 300 megabyte disks (.vis. 345 >Maxtor or Imprimis/Wren) to the Macintosh? No problems, especially with the wonderful Imprimis drives. >Can the Finder actually handle that much space? Basically, "no". >Do I need to do anything funny with >partitioning the disk or can it be just one big partition. You can use it as one big volume if you run the Desktop Manager INIT that comes with AppleShare. This, unfortunatly, has some undesirable side effects, such as some documents not being able to find their applications. The reason the Finder has problems with large disk is because of the way the desktop file is maintained. Partitioning works pretty well... >What if I do partition the disk? Can the Finder open each parititon as a >seperate volume? I have installed several larger Imprimis drives from MicroNet and their disk installation software has partitioning built in. Works pretty well. On my personal 173 MB disk, I have 4 equal size partitions for System Applications Development Scratch It just turns out that each partition fits perfectly on a SyQuest cartridge for backups. Each partition looks like a seperate disk. The only negative is plodding through SFGetFile & PutFile dialogs to get at the disk you want. >I'm looking for a new (big) disk for my new machine. Can the IIx >power supply handle the power requirements of big disks like this? No sweat. >Even with let's say 3-4 Nubus boards installed along side? Works for me... --scott -- Scott Truesdell
nakata@lindy.Stanford.EDU (Lance Nakata) (01/09/90)
In article <10310@zodiac.ADS.COM> jtn@zodiac.ADS.COM (John Nelson) writes: >Are there any probl;ems with connecting 300 megabyte disks (.vis. 345 >Maxtor or Imprimis/Wren) to the Macintosh? Can the Finder actually >handle that much space? Do I need to do anything funny with >partitioning the disk or can it be just one big partition. What if I >do partition the disk? Can the Finder open each parititon as a >seperate volume? I'd also like to know the answers to these questions. In particular, a user on campus has a 300MB FWB hard disk hooked up to a 5MB RAM SE/30. He used the enclosed HD Partition program to make 7 (yes, seven) partitions, but Finder (no MultiFinder running) will not mount all of them. The error is something like "not enough Finder memory to work with disk _____ (some partition name)." I've seen this error before long ago, but can't remember how we got rid of it. Is this a problem with the number of partitions, or a Finder limitation? I believe he's running with the System 6.0.3 or 6.0.4 release, if that matters. All he's trying to do is make the disk into an AppleShare 2.0.1 server. Please send me direct email if possible. I'll summarize. Lance Nakata Stanford University nakata@jessica.stanford.edu (Internet) gx.lyn@stanford (Bitnet) jessica.stanford.edu!nakata@uunet.uu.net (Usenet)
MacUserLabs@cup.portal.com (Stephan - Somogyi) (01/10/90)
jtn@zodiac.ADS.COM (John Nelson) writes: >Are there any probl;ems with connecting 300 megabyte disks (.vis. 345 >Maxtor or Imprimis/Wren) to the Macintosh? Can the Finder actually >handle that much space? I have a 300MB Wren IV and have no problems. I've increased the Finder MF partition size to 256k, but that's mainly to speed file copying. >Do I need to do anything funny with partitioning the disk or can it >be just one big partition. Mine's one big partition. Disk First Aid takes quite some time to verify the directory structure, but that's about the only drawback I can think of. I also use Desktop Manager, which I recommend highly if you have a large single volume. >What if I do partition the disk? Can the Finder open each parititon >as a seperate volume? Yes. >Can the IIx power supply handle the power requirements of big disks >like this? Probably, but if it were me, I'd get an external drive. Portability and easy accessibility far outweigh the hassle of having to turn the thing off every night and on in the morning. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Stephan Somogyi Berlin ist 1 Reise wert. NetWorkShop Manager MacUser Any opinions expressed above are mine.
MacUserLabs@cup.portal.com (Stephan - Somogyi) (01/10/90)
truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) writes: >You can use it as one big volume if you run the Desktop Manager INIT >that comes with AppleShare. This, unfortunatly, has some undesirable >side effects, such as some documents not being able to find their >applications. This hasn't ever happened to me. I'm paranoid and rebuild my Desktop every 2-4 weeks, so that might be it. If you use DTM, rebuild every so often on general principles. >I have installed several larger Imprimis drives from MicroNet and >their disk installation software has partitioning built in. I use LaCie's SilverLining; it also supports partitioning. It also has the nice feature of being able to tweak a driver for max performance. I have no experience with MicroNet's software, but am more than pleased with SilverLining. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Stephan Somogyi Berlin ist 1 Reise wert. NetWorkShop Manager MacUser Any opinions expressed above are mine.
dce@smsc.sony.com (David Elliott) (01/11/90)
In article <25A8E4C0.6965@paris.ics.uci.edu> truesdel@ics.uci.edu (Scott Truesdell) writes: >You can use it as one big volume if you run the Desktop Manager INIT >that comes with AppleShare. This, unfortunatly, has some undesirable >side effects, such as some documents not being able to find their >applications. The reason the Finder has problems with large disk is >because of the way the desktop file is maintained. Partitioning >works pretty well... Does anyone understand the circumstances under which Desktop Manager has this problem? On my system at home, I use DM and never have problems. Here at work, it seems that you have to have the application folder open to launch an application using the document. The difference is that here I'm using the network and at home I'm not. Is this where the problem shows up? -- David Elliott dce@smsc.sony.com | ...!{uunet,mips}!sonyusa!dce (408)944-4073 "Baziotes! Baziotes! Getcha red hot Baziotes here!"
baum@Apple.COM (Allen J. Baum) (01/11/90)
[] >jtn@zodiac.ADS.COM (John Nelson) writes: > >>Are there any probl;ems with connecting 300 megabyte disks (.vis. 345 >>Maxtor or Imprimis/Wren) to the Macintosh? Can the Finder actually >>handle that much space? Well, the finder seems to have a limit of 32k? blocks. So, if you have a drive over 60M, your blocksize increases, and you get fragmentation. I think. -- baum@apple.com (408)974-3385 {decwrl,hplabs}!amdahl!apple!baum
urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de (01/14/90)
In comp.sys.mac.hardware baum@apple.UUCP (Allen Baum) writes: < [] < >jtn@zodiac.ADS.COM (John Nelson) writes: < > < >>Are there any probl;ems with connecting 300 megabyte disks (.vis. 345 < >>Maxtor or Imprimis/Wren) to the Macintosh? Can the Finder actually < >>handle that much space? < < Well, the finder seems to have a limit of 32k? blocks. So, if you have a < drive over 60M, your blocksize increases, and you get fragmentation. I think. That's not the finder, that's HFS. The number of allocation blocks is an unsigned integer, and thus it's limited to 65535 blocks. If it gets bigger, the block size is increased (in units of 512 Bytes). So any HFS volume up to 32 MB will have 512-byte blocks, up to 64 MB, 1024-byte blocks, then 1536, then ... you get the idea. There are two problems with this: o you'll lose unused space at the end of files (in a sense, that's the opposite of fragmentation). So if a file is one byte long, you still need 2048 bytes to store it, or however big your allocation block size is. o you can't have more than 65500 files (although file and directory IDs (file IDs don't officially exist yet, but HFS has them anyway) are long integers) and o the finder calculates needed space for the _source_ volume while copying. So if you have 800 small files which you want to copy to a floppy disk, and your hard disk is 200 MBytes big (my CDC was 650 MBytes ;-) -- now it's only 150, the rest is A/UX stuff), Finder will tell you there's not enough space on the floppy, while if you copy them in four installments, well, there suddenly is. This is a Finder glitch which Apple should remove someday. The HFS limitation on 65535 allocation blocks should also be removed someday, but I doubt that this will happen with Sys 7.0. Disclaimer: There is a certain operating system which effectively forces you to reformat your hard disk whenever you want to upgrade to the next version. It's called "MS-DOS". Fortunately, whoever designed HFS showed some signs of intelligence. -- Matthias Urlichs