Is there some issues about big partition in 9.2.2 ?

[Angel]

The new beige G3 quest is around an IDE/SD Adapter plus a 64GB SDXC Samsung connected to the integrated ide controller (can't find a smarter pci one) which it is very capricious expecially with big files like img and sit archives. Sometimes it choose to work fine, another slowup (actually a copy operation of a 450MB sit archive is taking more than 2 hours) or simply die forcing me to kill all brutally restarting.

The SD (64GB) is splitted in two partition, ~8GB the first one, the rest in the second because i've read something about Mac OS another idiosyncrasies but i'm fearing the system or this version/implementation of the filesystem (HFS+) doesn't really accept very well the big one. Maybe i must make more smaller parts or use another partitioning tools ? Do you heard anything about this ?

[IIO]

OS 9 supports volumes (and disks) up tp 2000 GB and will boot from volumes up to 192 gb.

norton systemworks supports up to 500 gb and protools 4 up to 176.

everything else runs fine until 192 / 2000.

actually a copy operation of a 450MB sit archive is taking more than 2 hours

that is not neccessarily the HD. the .sit format is horribly slow on a G3 or G4.

people were compressing akai.iso.sit in 1998 because it would have saved 3 hours of uploading, you wouldnt do that today (or at least use zip or tar)

on my computer and internal disks .sit takes about 10-30 times longer than .rar in OSX.

[Angel]

OS 9 supports volumes (and disks) up tp 2000 GB and will boot from volumes up to 192 gb.

norton systemworks supports up to 500 gb and protools 4 up to 176.

everything else runs fine until 192 / 2000.

But are them real or only theoretically non tested values ?
I remember, years ago, i used a palm from psion with CF support. The poor thing born with 32/64MB CF support in his head but i've putted in a 1GB one and the system, symbian, supported it... almost... The system read and wrote on it but slow like a hell, when i've splitted it in four 256MB partition, thing went better and faster, so i think there is something like this in os 9.2 too. Or can be some strange behaviour in Beige G3 old rom ?

[Angel]

In https://mirror.informatimago.com/next/developer.apple.com/technotes/tn/tn2010.html

I'm seeing this

Memory

The Memory control panel provides a user interface for the configuration of virtual memory, RAM disk storage, and the size of the disk cache.

    The maximum disk cache size was increased to 32,736K (32M - 32K); the previous limit was 8160K (8M - 32K). This was done to help performance when allocating large files on large HFS Plus volumes (220GB and larger) initialized with the prior default allocation block size of 4KB.

    For large volumes, the size of the volume's allocation bitmap can end up being bigger than the disk cache, causing the File Manager to do a huge amount of I/O when allocating space for a file. Setting the size of the disk cache to a value larger than the size of the bitmap allows the bitmap to remain in the cache, dramatically speeding up allocation requests.

    When a volume uses 4KB allocation blocks (which was the default for large volumes initialized with Mac OS 9.0.4 or earlier), the allocation bitmap will be 32KB per GB of volume size. Volumes over 220GB initialized with Mac OS 9.1 default to an 8KB allocation block size, or 16KB of bitmap per GB of volume size. For example, when using a 200GB volume, the disk cache should be GREATER than 6400K; the next larger size is 6432K. When using a 400GB volume initialized with Mac OS 9.0, you should set the disk cache size to 12832K or larger for best performance.

    Note that the default disk cache size is always less than 8MB (8192K), for maximum compatibility.

I can't add more than 8160K. Maybe there is too much difference between OS partition and the so-called "Extra" one (8G vs 56G) ?

[IIO]

But are them real or only theoretically non tested values ?

i currently have more than 20 HDs of 1.5 & 2 TB of size, and most of them only use 1 partition, if that answers your question.

so you can safely buy any 2TB disk for OS9 and connect it via SATA or firewire (your current machine in question will only support 128 at the stock IDE bus)

you have to format them in 10.4.x (APM, HFS+, no journalling, check OS9 drivers) but else they are 100% supported by the OS.

[IIO]

if you have no good reason to use virtual memory, turn it off. it is an OS7 times concept.

[IIO]

oh yeah and,

For large volumes, the size of the volume's allocation bitmap can end up being bigger than the disk cache

good point, but the map is getting longer from many files, not from them beeing long.

it is for sure not a good idea to put e.g. 2TB of 5 kb textfiles on a single volume. the same goes for DVDs and BDs.^^ if you have to store tenth of millions of files somewhere it will be a good idea to use toast images for that anway.

for an mp3 collection - 500,000 files in 500 folders -  it will be totally legit and doesnt cause any problems or waiting time to put them all on the same disk and volume.

[Angel]

But this thing is slow, very, a lot, terribly slow. What kind of test can i put on in order to understand what is smoking bad ?

When installed, app seems run fine, installers like Vise don't put any problem, only move/copy via finder is a crap...

VM is off, disk caching can't rise over 8160K (I've read something about 32K per MB and in fact 8160/32 = 255 but related with who and why), can be something linked to UDMA/PIO Mode ? Is there a way for verify this ? In Windows this verify in somewhat hidden but not too much, here i don't know and i hope don't write anything in CW, finding a dedicated Gestalt...

Another strange thing i'm seeing is related to occupied resources: i believed os 9 finder was multithreaded but simply i can't do anything when it is writing data... this seems really related to PIO Mode...

[IIO]

no experience with SD cards here.

[Angel]

no experience with SD cards here.

Maybe it's similar with Compact Flash w/ IDE Adapter

[Mat]

you have to format them in 10.4.x

Sorry, but what a silly idea! Can we please stop confusing new people by suggesting completely different Operating Systems …

[Angel]

HFS+ is a journaled filesystem ? Seem strange but...
Let another try: is there a mac version of partition magic with non destructive partition editor ?

[Mat]

No it is not! That is why I asked about NOT pointing you to X or other Operating Systems. Just format them with Mac OS 9 or 9 tools.

About your general problem with SD, I suspect some issues with the ATA modes of the adapter and the computer. Often modern adapters need the last IDE standard, and your machine has probably an ATA-2 interface (if it is the first G3).

[IIO]

you have to format them in 10.4.x

Sorry, but what a silly idea! Can we please stop confusing new people by suggesting completely different Operating Systems …

it is not a silly idea, it is working concept and the correct answer if the question is if you need to partition disks - because in OS9 you can not create 2TB volumes with the board tools.

OSX is the most important system utility you can have on your mac os 9 computer, dont you know?

[Mat]

It is an silly idea! It is as useful as telling "boot any linux, make sure the package hfsplus is active and use GParted for creating a partition without journaling".

Where the hell should he have an well working X at an early beige G3 from!? In worst case he is stuck at any 10.2.8, …

No, there are enough tools at Mac OS 9 that can format, partition and care about ANY disc issue in Mac OS 9. The best one is Intechs HD SpeedTools in my opinion. So please stop making Mac OS 9 newcomers lives more complicated by suggesting X!

[Angel]

About your general problem with SD, I suspect some issues with the ATA modes of the adapter and the computer. Often modern adapters need the last IDE standard, and your machine has probably an ATA-2 interface (if it is the first G3).

Ouch... try to recover old glories: lost game at start... Need more test

[Mat]

You could tell us what G3 you have exactly, and what your adapter model you got if you like. Because that speeds are completely abnormal, even my 8MHz Ataris are faster!

[Angel]

From System Profiler:

G3 Beige 266Mhz
768MB Ram
6MB VRAM
Rom $77D.45F2
No VM
8160K Disk caching

Adapter:

Product ID: SD to CF Adapter V1.4
Prod: FC-1307
Rev. Num: 1.4
Driver vers.: 3.2.8

[Angel]

From MacBench

Disk Tests:


Sequential Read 512:   854.01      kilobytes/sec
Sequential Read 1024K:14863.69           kilobytes/sec

Random Read 512:   495.64           kilobytes/sec
Random Read 1024K:   14883.47      kilobytes/sec

Sequential Write 512:   3589.09   kilobytes/sec
Sequential Write 1024K:13257.41   kilobytes/sec

Random Write 512:   148.44   kilobytes/sec
Random Write 1024K:   13286.24   kilobytes/sec

Houston we have a problem with random operation: a filesystem related one ? Something about SD and flash memories ?
Adapter side i've found this https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=77797&p=913648 but don't sure how much can be linked with OS9