Max. size HDD on A1200?
 

I was wondering what the max. size of a 2,5" HDD is that works in a std. A1200?

Well, this is not related to the A1200, it´s the FileSystem you use ! With the old FFS Filesystem up to WB 3.1 you can use HD´s with up to 4 GB, if you use the FFS from Amiga OS 3.9, there isn´t a limit (theoretically) ;)

But will ALL brands <4gb 2,5" HDD's be correctly recognised in WB3.1 using FFS ?

AFAIK know, yes ;) I´m not aware of any brand of 2,5" HD´s that isn´t :)

If it's IDE it works, no restrains!

I have to try hooking up my 8.4GB to the meega nad see what happens.

I think you can make a larger hard drive work if you partition it. Right, Retro?

Not quite :) The old FFS got some limitations, e.g. the Cylinder, Heads and so on so you might not be able to use the full capacity, but as I said, with a patch for the old FFS (WB 3.1) you are able to use those IDE HD´s :D

Hey people, don't tell nonsense here.

There is a programming interface between the device driver (scsi.device) and the FFS. Using OS3.1 this interface uses 32 bits to address a byte on the hard drive (no matter if it's inside a partition or not). So the maximum hard disk size is 4GB (2^32). There is no way to expand this.

With OS3.9 comes a patch for scsi.device and a new FFS which both can handle 64 bit numbers for addressing storage on the drive. So the 4GB limit has gone (as soon as SetPatch is started, so the boot partition has to reside below the 4GB border !!)

Besides this, the FFS has a limitation for the partition size of 8GB. So need at least 5 partitions to fully use a 40GB hard drive. No, you need 6 because one has to be lesss than 4GB and below the 4GB border, if you want to boot from it.

Now there are several methods to bypass the 4GB border even with OS3.1. One is to bypass the standard programming interface and use direct SCSI commands instead (even with IDE). To do this, the FileSystem must be told to use direct SCSI. FFS cannot do so. For PFS3 you must use the PFS3ds version, for SFS you must use version 1.84 or below.

One additional hint: you can built in a hard drive of any size. As long as you only use the first 4GB for AmigaOS partitions, there is no problem. You can use the rest e.g. for installing Linux.

Ah oke... thanks for the info guys! I'm off looking for a cheap little hdd :)

Nobody said any nonsense. You said the same as Retroman, in spannerhead terms :P

120mb -> 2,1gb :D
 

Yow... just bought a fine little 2.1gb hdd and it works like a charm :D thanks again

jrom sets mode +:): jrom :)