frank@odetics.com (Frank Merrow) (11/20/90)
Hi, My machine was purchased long enough ago that DOS 3.2 was the best available at the time. Even though I have a 40Meg drive I have never been able to get at more than 32Megs of it. I was considering purchasing DOS 4.x to get at the extra 8Megs, but I got to looking at the way the drive is currently defined. Since the 32Meg partition has (almost exactly) 16K clusters in it seems likely that the DOS 3.2 limitation was 16K clusters in a partition. THE QUESTION: I have LOTS of small files. If DOS 4.x allows larger partitions by giving me 4k (or more) clusters instead of the 2k I have now, I will likely NOT get ANY benifit out of the larger partition. Does DOS 4.x get at the extra space with a bigger FAT table (more clusters) or by bigger clusters? Also my "Mace Utilities" dates from this time as well. Does anyone know off hand if an "older" version of Mace can handle DOS 4.x partitions, or will I need to update/repurchase? Frank frank@odetics.com or uunet!odetics!frank
plim@hpsgwp.sgp.hp.com (Peter Lim) (11/22/90)
/ frank@odetics.com (Frank Merrow) / 6:15 am Nov 20, 1990 / writes: > My machine was purchased long enough ago that DOS 3.2 was the best available > at the time. Even though I have a 40Meg drive I have never been able > to get at more than 32Megs of it. I was considering purchasing DOS 4.x to > get at the extra 8Megs, but I got to looking at the way the drive is currently > defined. Since the 32Meg partition has (almost exactly) 16K clusters in it > seems likely that the DOS 3.2 limitation was 16K clusters in a partition. > What do you mean 16K clusters ? The last time I use DOS 3.2 was about 3 years ago. I seems to remember that DOS 3.2 allocates 2K per cluster for hard disk size > 16 MB and (<= 32 MB). ie. 16 bit FAT. For hard disk size <= 16 MB, DOS chooses 12 bit FAT and you get 4 K per cluster. For DOS 4.x, my experience is that with partition > 32 MB <= 128 MB, you get 2K cluster; > 128 MB <= 256 MB, you get 4 K cluster; and > 256 MB and <= 512 MB, you get 8 K cluster. > THE QUESTION: > > I have LOTS of small files. If DOS 4.x allows larger partitions by giving > me 4k (or more) clusters instead of the 2k I have now, I will likely NOT > get ANY benifit out of the larger partition. Does DOS 4.x get at the extra > space with a bigger FAT table (more clusters) or by bigger clusters? Also > Seems like you should be okay if you have <= 128 MB disk. My experience is with HP's MS-DOS 4.01. So, your mileage might vary --- I say this because nobody seems to agree on what is the largest disk DOS 4.x can accomodate (so .... something is unknown). > my "Mace Utilities" dates from this time as well. Does anyone know off hand > if an "older" version of Mace can handle DOS 4.x partitions, or will I need > to update/repurchase? > Never use MACE, but I would try the old version with data which I don't mind losing. Regards, . .. ... .- -> -->## Life is fast enough as it is ........ Peter Lim. ## .... DON'T PUSH IT !! >>>-------, ########################################### : E-mail: plim@hpsgwg.HP.COM Snail-mail: Hewlett Packard Singapore, : Tel: (065)-279-2289 (ICDS, ICS) | Telnet: 520-2289 1150 Depot Road, __\@/__ Singapore 0410. SPLAT ! #include <standard_disclaimer.hpp>