Hi! http://www.oldfiles.streamlinetrial.co.uk/powerload/notes.htm
(the powerload site has many DOS/Windows related downloads such as updates for SHARE or BACKUP/RESTORE...) writes about default cluster sites in Win9x: Default to use FAT16 for < 0.5 GB (okay, not our problem, if user wants FAT32, we give him FAT32...), then use 4k cluster size until ** 2M clusters ** are reached, 8k ... 16k ... 32k ... only for > 64 GB disk size Win9x will reach > 2M clusters! Note that Win9x cannot use partitions with more than 4M-32k clusters, so for > 128 GB disk size you need to use a fresher Win?? system, where 64k cluster size is possible and where the allowed number of clusters is limited only by RAM (VFAT!). My suggestion: Change the default cluster size determination algorithm to: - 0.5k per cluster if < 512 MB - 4k per cluster otherwise - double cluster size until < 2 Mclusters are reached, UNLESS that would mean 64k cluster size - if there are > 4M-32k clusters now (check kernel sources of FreeDOS for correct value), do one last cluster size * 2, reaching 64k cluster size (happens if disk > 128 GB, can people want FAT32 for that? ;-)). - if we were forced to use 64k cluster size, cluster count can be anything, as described above (okay, max 256 Mclusters, because FAT32 is actually 28bit, but that is 16 TB for 64k per cluster) The suggested algorithm would move the "sweet spot" of FreeDOS-selected cluster counts from "2-3.9 Mclusters" to "1-2 Mclusters", which means on average having HALF the FAT size for disks up to 64 GB. Smaller FATs (4-8 MB instead of 8-16 MB each) will mean faster FreeDOS FAT32 operation. Without the suggested change, partitions bigger than 8 GB will, if formatted in FreeDOS, have twice as big FATs compared to partitions formatted in other OSes, and therefore be less efficient (although one could argue that small cluster sizes are good - but huge FATs are definitely bad for a 16bit OS with limited CACHE sizes...). Thanks for your attention :-). Eric ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by BEA Weblogic Workshop FREE Java Enterprise J2EE developer tools! Get your free copy of BEA WebLogic Workshop 8.1 today. http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=4721&alloc_id=10040&op=click _______________________________________________ Freedos-kernel mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-kernel
