PRODUCT NAME
Professional File System 2, version 4.2.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION
FFS replacement filesystem with enhanced reliability,
speed and feature set.
AUTHOR/COMPANY
Name: Great Effects Development
Address: Hofwijckplein 46a
2515 RL Den Haag
The Netherlands
Web page: http://www.greed.nl
E-mail: info@greed.nl
DISTRIBUTOR
Name: Stefan Ossowskis Schatztruhe
Gesellschaft für Software mbH
Address: Veronikastraße 33
45131 Essen
Germany
Web page: http://www.schatztruhe.de
E-mail: stefano@schatztruhe.de
Phone: ++49 (0) 201 788 778
Fax: ++49 (0) 201 798 447
LIST PRICE
99 DM for a single machine licence,
59 DM for an upgrade from AFS.
HARDWARE/SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
An Amiga with operating system version 2.0 or higher,
equipped with a hard drive and a CD-ROM.
MACHINE USED FOR TESTING
Amiga 500 with an A590 SCSI controller,
using Kickstart 3.1/Workbench 3.1.
INTRODUCTION
It's no secret FFS is slow and outdated in many ways.
Anyone feel familiar with 2 GB partition/4 GB drive
limitation, validation-problems, slow seeking, etc.?
If you're absolutely honest about it, you'll admit to
yourself that using FFS on a partition any bigger than
500 MB is no picnic, particularly when validating the
volume is concerned. Crashes do occur on any given
system from time to time, and when this happens, it
usually takes place at the worst possible moment.
That means another boring eternity of waiting for
the drive(s) to validate, which often fails, and
then it's time for another tedious <insert your
favorite disk repair program's name> session...
Fortunately, there's a worthy replacement available now.
Meet Professional File System 2, the followup to AFS Pro.
It supports partitions up to 104 GB and drives up to 2 TB
(2000 GB!) using TD64 or direct SCSI, whilst promising up
to 500% speed increase over FFS. Not only that, but your
disks are promised to be kept valid at all times.
PFS2 comes on CD with a manual provided in AmigaGuide
format. Owners of AGA Amigas, who are into gaming, might
be delighted to know there's a bonus game called "Kang Fu"
included. Not owning an AGA Amiga, I'm unable to test it.
INSTALLATION
Installation consists of two distinctive phases:
In the first phase, all the required files are copied
on your HDD by the installer script. These files aren't
usable directly from CD, as they need to be serialized
with your name and serial number first. As a side
remark, Installer v43.3 must be used. It puzzles me,
why hasn't it been included on the CD. I guess some
legal formality prohibits it's distribution on CD.
The installer lets you choose between different PFS2
flavors; the ones available are Normal, Direct SCSI,
Multiuser, Direct SCSI Multiuser and Floppy versions.
Besides the generic 68000 version, there are optimized
versions of each for 68020, 68040 and 68060.
In the second phase, you need to install PFS2 on the
RDB(s) of your HDD(s) using HDToolBox, HDInstTools or
similar solution. Reading the manual before proceeding
with this is a Very Good Idea, if not an obligatory
move. The AmigaGuide manual contains in-depth
instructions for installation, with clarifying
screenshot pictures where necessary.
If you're upgrading from AFS, the next step will be
easy, as it's just a question of adding the new
filesystem. PFS2 is fully compatible with Ami-FileSafe
and therefore AFS can simply be replaced by PFS2.
Unfortunately, existing FFS volumes need to be
reformatted; PFS2 stores information on the disk in
a different, more reliable and efficient manner.
Getting your system partition under PFS2 could be
tricky, so here's how I did it. First, I copied
everything onto another drive and then set up the
RDB with HDToolBox. After this, there was the reboot
bit, in order for the new settings to take place.
I booted up from the Workbench 3.1 floppy and issued
a format command on the system partition, followed by
"copy dh1:dh0backup/#? dh0: all clone quiet".
Now that these two installation phases have been
completed, PFS2 is at your service.
REVIEW
The CD cover and the documentation promise a lot.
Surprisingly enough, none of this is empty hype.
PFS2 delivers much higher performance than FFS in all
given areas. Simply said, the speed increase is awesome.
Read/write operations, scanning directories and deleting
files was never this fast before! Not to mention,
parallel accesses perform much better. On FFS, it's
impossible for me to play a 16-bit stereo sample at
the rate of 44.1 kHz straight off the hard disk,
if I don't prevent other accesses to that particular
volume. PFS2 makes accessing files on the same volume
possible, without halts or breaks in the sound.
Do remember it's an A500 we're talking about here!
PFS2 makes even DC-FFS look like a snail.
The manual states: "volume is always valid, no matter
what happens". It turns out, even switching power off
during a write operation won't damage PFS2 volumes. A
technique called "atomic commit" is used, ensuring
correct directory structure at all times. If a crash
or power loss occurs at the time of overwriting a file,
the original file is still in one piece. Seems to work
flawlessly, despite all my attempts to torture the poor
filesystem to death! No more waiting for the drive(s)
to validate. This is probably the best of all PFS2
features, bound to save you most time in the long run.
PFS2 is fully AmigaDOS compatible with certain
reservations. Fully compatible, yes, but only
at filesystem level. Applications accessing the
disk directly, thus bypassing the filesystem, won't
work if they were specifically designed with a FFS
disk in mind. Disk repair and optimizer tools are
examples of such. Then again, you don't need FFS
disk repair tools for PFS2 volumes, as PFS2 doesn't
suffer from FFS problems. You may also forget disk
optimizers when using PFS2, as the filesystem itself
does very good job at saving data optimally.
Have you ever undeleted something from an FFS volume?
I'm sure most people have done this, or at least tried
to. Well, with PFS2, you needn't scan the entire volume
for deleted directory entries (and wait for an eternity
for the scan to finish), as there's an invisible
directory called ".deldir" in the root of each PFS2
volume, containing the latest 31 deleted files.
Restoring files from this directory is as easy as
simply copying them elsewhere!
If you've got programs that produce logfiles, you
might appreciate the automatic truncation feature
PFS2 has got on offer. You simply specify the maximum
size for the file and it stops growing indefinitely.
Chances are, if you've got a TCP/IP stack installed
on your Amiga, this feature will come most handy.
As a caveat from an A500 user's point of view (of
course, this isn't applicable to users of Powerful
Amigas), it must be said that PFS2 is more processor
intensive than FFS. You notice this particularly when
deleting Really Big files from your disk. Still, this
isn't a big deal to worry about, as PFS2 performs
remarkably well even on a 7 MHz 68000. This could
actually be an advantage from a power user's point
of view, knowing that PFS2 takes advantage of faster
CPU's to the full and therefore delivers more
performance.
Another, slightly more serious, caveat from an
A500 user's point of view: the included tools
'diskvalid' (a basic disk repair utility for
PFS2 volumes) and 'pfs2ls' (a directory lister
like 'list' or 'dir', capable of displaying
PFS2 specific information) don't work on 68000.
However, I don't think this is so bad as it sounds;
from what's stated in Diskvalid's guide, I deduct
this program is designed mostly for analyzing and
checking the volume for any problems caused by
non-finished development versions of the filesystem.
Besides, I've learned from Great Effects Development
that a new, 68000 compatible, repair program called
"PFS Doctor" will be included on a new upgrade.
Of course, it would be nice to be able to run these
two tools, but I don't think either (alone or
combined) is a really critical issue. I'm very
confident on PFS2's ability to stand on it's own
feet, without the need to a disk repair program.
Call me crazy, but this is based on what I've seen.
You see, despite all my attempts to torture this
filesystem to death, it has remained in 100% working
order. Any more of this treatment, and the _hardware_
would fail, even if the software would like to go on
and on. PFS2 is as tough as they come and it's
probably the closest thing to "bulletproof software"
on Amiga so far.
CONCLUSIONS
PFS2 is well worth a look, if you ever wondered about
life beyond FFS, free of it's limitations. I won't be
going back to FFS anymore. Instead, FFS is completely
banned from my system now. Prior to PFS2, I used to
be highly skeptical about any 3rd party FFS replacement
filesystem, but this experience has enlightened me in
a way that could be compared to opening one's eyes.
No, you won't believe it until you see it. Yes, you
will be amazed! No, you don't want to go back anymore.
Yes, you will wonder how the hell could you put up
with FFS.
Here are the pros and cons in a nutshell:
+ No more validate-wait
+ Speed
+ Reliability
+ Big drive support
+ Easy undeletion of files
- Installation could be hard for a novice
OVERALL: 96%
This filesystem is near-perfect and an essential
purchase for anyone, who ever experienced
inconvenience with FFS. In my humble opinion,
PFS2 is the most important software package to
be released for the Amiga in a long time. PFS2
is exciting news, enough to melt even an old
sceptic such as myself.
If you're having any doubts, you should try and
get over them; the only possibility I see for
messing things up with PFS2, would be a result
of NOT reading the manual prior to installation
phase two. Being familiar with HDToolBox is
definitely an advantage.
HUNGRY FOR MORE?
Mark Harden's PFS2 FAQ is at the following URL:
http://www.harden.demon.co.uk/pfs/
If you're an A590 or A2091 user, Guru-ROM V6 is
the ideal partner for PFS2. See my A590 FAQ on
Aminet: docs/help/a590faq.txt
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 1999 Timo Rönkkö <deadbeat73@hotmail.com>
This review may be freely distributed and you may do
whatever you like with it. Including, but not limited
to, printing it out and making a paper airplane. As
usual, standard disclaimer applies.