st01b and ffs

[Derek E. Terveer]

I thought the net would be interested in my experiences in installing
the updated driver just sent out by mike at cimcor.mn.org in articles:

	<1991Jan2.010542.17298 at cimcor.mn.org>
	<1991Jan2.010638.17353 at cimcor.mn.org>
	<1991Jan2.010734.17412 at cimcor.mn.org>

in my esix 5.3.2-d system.  I am running a Datacomp 386/25MHz with a wren iv
hanging off a scsi st-01 and a miniscribe 6085 off a (yuch!) wd1003 mfm
card.  (I boot off of the mfm drive)

I was using the previous release of this driver and obtaining approximately
50k/sec transfer rate from the block device (raw device was not supported).  I
could not use the ffs (on the scsi driver), since it was also not supported by
the old st-01 driver.

The beta version supports raw devices (for the most part, anyway) and the ffs,
so I backed up my wren iv, created a ffs on the drive and copied back the data.
The problems I encountered were:
	1)  1024 byte sectors are not supported by the st-01 driver.  So,
	    changing from 1024 to 512 byte sectors allowed me to create a ffs
	    but i lost 324M-313M = 11M of disk space.  Oh well, at least i can
	    use the ffs now.
	2)  the default fs created by the newfs command (in /etc/ffs) is a sys
	    v directory format, so using the information gleaned from previous
	    articles, i tried running mkfs manually without the -S option and
	    all the other parameters intact (as shown by "newfs -v") in an
	    attempt to create a bsd file system (with 255 char file names
	    instead of 14).  However, when the fs was built and i created a
	    long file name and then tried to reference it with a wild char,
	    i.e.:
	    touch abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
	    rm abc*
	    rm: abc* non-existent
	    rm abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

	    if the full name is specified, rm finds it, otherwise wild
	    characters don't seem to work (well, at least the "*" doesn't and
	    that was enough for me! -- i didn't test any other wild chars)
	    Sigh.  Back to the system v file system.
	    If one runs "newfs -N /dev/.." on a fs just created as a bsd file
	    system, newfs (incorrectly?) reports that it is a system v fs.

So, i just used the default newfs command and built a sysv type fs on my wren
iv and everything seems to be working just fine.  I am now getting between
approximately 100k/sec and 300k/sec rates (depending on load) with the command:
time dd if=/dev/dsk/5s0 of=/dev/null count=200 bs=8k
-- 
Derek "Tigger" Terveer	det at hawkmoon.MN.ORG - MNFHA, NCS - UMN Women's Lax, MWD
I am the way and the truth and the light, I know all the answers; don't need
your advice.  -- "I am the way and the truth and the light" -- The Legendary Pink Dots