Short: Smart Filesystem 6th BETA version Author: hjohn@xs4all.nl Uploader: hjohn@xs4all.nl Version: 1.13 Type: disk/misc ------------------------------------------------------------ This filesystem is BETA -- this means it is not finished and may potentially destroy all your data. USE AT YOUR OWN RISK! For more information, see http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS ------------------------------------------------------------ What's new? ----------- 15 November 1998, changes for version 1.13: - Fixed two major problems with the 1.10 release. Sorry for all the inconvience they caused. - BUGFIX: SFS could hang the system during booting under very specific circumstances. This might fix the booting problems with some harddisk controllers. - There's an SFS mailinglist now! See the guide for more details. Note: This version is compatible with the previous releases of SFS starting from version 0.67. There is no need to reformat existing SFS partitions. 3 November 1998, changes for version 1.10: - Set version to 1.0 to be compatible with ReOrg (ReOrg hangs the machine when there is a SFS filesystem which has a 0.x version). SFS is still not finished however, so be careful! - BUGFIX: Fixed a very rare problem with case-sensitive names where the filesystem could accidently use an object with the same name but with a different case. - BUGFIX: SFS now allows programs to create files in exclusively locked directories (like FFS does). This should fix problems when used with Filer. Also fixed a bug in ACTION_CHANGE_MODE. - BUGFIX: An implicit delete (when overwriting a file for example) can now no longer cause a notification message to be sent. This should fix problems with IPrefs when ENV: was assigned to a SFS partition. - BUGFIX: There was a slight chance SFS could accidently return a soft-link if one was encountered while looking for another object. - NEW: Easy undeleting of files. When formatting a new SFS disk, a special directory (".deldir") will be created. This directory will contain the last 25 files you've recently deleted (if there's enough free disk space). - Objects with the special Hidden bit set will not appear in directory listings (".deldir" has Hidden bit set). The Hidden bit is not the same as the 'h' bit and cannot be changed for now. - The number of free blocks is now stored in the root block. For backwards compatibility however the number of free blocks is still being calculated by reading the bitmap at mounting time as well. This will be removed in a future version. For old SFS partitions you'll get a requester the first time you use this new version of SFS, which informs you that this number isn't set correctly yet -- this is normal. - BUGFIX: The Copyback system still had some inconsistencies which could cause corrupt files under specific circumstances. This system has been thoroughly checked and a number of problems where fixed. - BUGFIX: The Archive bit of some random file sometimes got cleared when deleting a file in the same directory. Instead the Archive bit of the directory itself should have been cleared, but it never was. - BUGFIX: When the fileptr wasn't in the last fragment of a file and it was extended with SetFileSize() the file contents would be destroyed. - Sped up reading of small amounts of data (this improves the speed of buffered I/O). - NEW: Owner UserID and GroupID can now be set (ACTION_SET_OWNER). - Added lots of sanity checks and thoroughly checked a very large portion of all SFS code and fixed dozens of potential problems. Note: This version is compatible with the previous releases of SFS starting from version 0.67. There is no need to reformat existing SFS partitions. You won't be able to use the new ".deldir" feature without reformatting however. Introduction ------------ Smart Filesystem is a new filesystem for your Amiga. A filesystem's main purpose is to store files on a disk in such a way that they can be located and used quickly. How this is done is up to the filesystem. The way information is stored on your disk has a large impact on speed and space efficiency, and so these factors can vary a lot from filesystem to filesystem. Smart Filesystem was created to provide you with an alternative to the Fast Fileystem. Smart Filesystem makes more efficient use of your disk space, has better performance in most areas and will allow for new features never seen before in an Amiga filesystem. Features -------- o Fast reading of directories. o Fast seeking, even in extremely large files. o Blocksizes of 512 bytes up to 32768 bytes (32 kB) are supported. o Supports large partitions. The limit is about 2000 GB, but it can be more depending on the blocksize. o Support for partitions larger than 4 GB or located (partially) beyond the 4 GB barrier on your drive. There is support for the New Style Devices which support 64 bit access, the 64-bit trackdisk commands and SCSI direct. o The length of file and directory names can be 100 characters. o The size of a file is limited to slightly less than 2 GB. o Modifying data on your disk is very safe. Even if your system is resetted, crashes or suffers from powerloss your disk will not be corrupted and will not require long validation procedures before you will be able to use it again. In the worst case you will only lose the last few modifications made to the disk. o There is a built-in configurable read-ahead cache system which tries to speed up small disk accesses. This cache has as a primary purpose to speed up directory reading but also works very well to speed up files read by applications which use small buffers. o Disk space is used very efficiently. o Supports Notification and Examine All. o Supports Soft links (hard links are not supported for now). o Using the SFSformat command you can format your SFS partition with case sensitive or case insensitive file and directory names. Default is case insensitive (like FFS). o There is a special directory which contains the last few files which were deleted. For more information, see http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjohn/SFS or read the included documentation. .