Date: Mon, 5 Feb 1996 23:37:01 +0200 (SAT) From: Robert Nordier <rnordier@iafrica.com> To: luigi@labinfo.iet.unipi.it (Luigi Rizzo) Cc: hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Some thoughts on FAT filesystems Message-ID: <199602052137.XAA00613@eac.iafrica.com> In-Reply-To: <199602051948.UAA21768@labinfo.iet.unipi.it> from "Luigi Rizzo" at Feb 5, 96 08:48:16 pm
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On Mon, 5 Feb 1996, Luigi Rizzo wrote: > > of sync, anytime anyone does anything in DOS. It needs setting up; > > and it's just too _exposed_. Because it's non-standard, users will > > complain bitterly when it bombs out; because it is visible, it'll > > be an endless minor source of controversy.... > > Sorry but it is completely standard. Well, perhaps I should have said "`non-standard'": meaning non-standard to DOS users, as a way of dealing with the DOS FS. > Yes, you are organizing data on the disk in a smarter way, > but that's completely compatible with standard FAT. > Only at runtime under FreeBSD you > have additional live structures that are only helpful if your system > crashes. And when your system crashes in the middle of a disk write, do > you complain because you have to use a non-standard utility to recover > your data instead of loosing them ? Oh, they're _transient_ structures? I understood them to be fixed. > > And about visibility: anything you install to improve performance > becomes visible, either in the form of a file containing a device > driver, a few lines in CONFIG.SYS (or a few hundreds of line in > SYSTEM.INI...) etc. > > And, in the end, should we really care about all this ? > > > If people really want the extra performance, I'd suggest the option of > > doing as Windows NT does and writing the FAT asynchronously. At least > > people are used to that, or used to the partial equivalent of running > > smartdrv without a write-through cache. And at least that would be a > > Microsoft-approved mess. :-) > > but we don't have this under FreeBSD. > I'm certainly not knocking the thought that went into this.... However, doing like NT will be _much_ easier, a bit quicker, and it will implement a way of living dangerously that DOS users completely understand (maybe even expect). So they've got a safe mode and a fast mode. Surely that's enough? -- Robert Nordier
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