Amiga MA Magazine 1998 #6/amigamamagazinepolishissue1998.iso/www/cucug/amiga/amiinfo/reviews/amifilesafe_2.txt

Internet Message Format | 1997-11-07 | 7KB

Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett
From: [e-mail] (Mat Bettinson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.reviews
Subject: FOLLOWUP: Ami-File-Safe (AFS) filesystem
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Date: 20 Jul 1995 18:26:20 GMT
Organization: The Amiga Online Review Column - ed. Daniel Barrett
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Reply-To: [e-mail] (Mat Bettinson)
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Keywords: filesystem, disk, commercial, followup
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PRODUCT NAME

        Ami-File-Safe (AFS) replacement file system for all Amigas.

    This article is an addendum to my previous review of 28 June 1995,
which also appeared in comp.sys.amiga.reviews.  [MODERATOR'S NOTE:  The
original review is available on our archives.  See the information at the
bottom of this review.  - Dan]


BRIEF DESCRIPTION

    AFS has been developed from the shareware file system called
Professional File System (PFS). Forth Level Developments have taken on the
project in conjunction with the original author, Michiel Pelt. AFS is
designed to replace the Fast File System on Hard and Floppy disks.

AUTHOR/COMPANY INFORMATION

    Name:        Forth Level Developments
    Address:    31 Ashley Hill, Montpelier
            Bristol BS6 5JA
            United Kingdom

    Telephone:    [phone]
    Fax:        [phone]

    E-mail:        [e-mail]

    English only, AFAIK.

    There's a public AFS mailing list now. Send email to
    [e-mail] with the following line in the body
    of the letter:

        SUBSCRIBE AFS <your email address>

    Send mailing list posts to [e-mail].


LIST PRICE

    The previous AFS review, referred to just 'Ami-File-Safe'.
    This has now been designated 'Professional' and another version
    released called the 'User' version.

    Professional:
    #59.36 Pounds Sterling. (~$94 US ?)
    VAT payable within UK at 17.5% I.E. #69.75 total

    User:
    #25.32 Pounds Sterling. (~$40 US ?)
    VAT payable within UK at 17.% I.E. #29.75 total


ADDENDUM

    Things have moved along since the last AFS review. Forth Level
Developments seem to have been actively developing the product and I
received couple of updates already. Now I can shove AFS in the RDB of the
A3000 softkicked machine with no problems where before I had to use a
mountlist and have my boot partition FFS.

    The manual has also been translated into a few European languages.
I'm not clear on which other than German and French.  Apparently a new
manual is due for inclusion shortly to replace the current rather skimpy
effort.

    The reason for this addendum, however, is that Ami-File-Safe has been
renamed to Ami-File-Safe 'Pro' and a new version release with some
limitations called Ami-File-Safe 'User'. The only limitations of the cheaper
'User' version are:

1> Maximum 650MB drive size and only ONE drive. (I'm not sure how it knows.)
2> No MuFS version of the filesystem.
3> Single user license; i.e., it is illegal to operate in all of a company's
   machines, etc.

    Number 1 was a point of confusion. You can't have as many 650MB (or
smaller) partitions as you like; your entire DRIVE must be under 650MB. I'm
puzzled as to how the filesystem makes it its business to know the entire
drive size when it should really only be concerned with a partition. Oh
well. I guess most users still fit within this restriction but for how much
longer? Cheap 750MB to 1GB IDE drives are already here. This may be more of
a cripple than it first appears though thankfully it's possible to upgrade
to the 'Pro' version later though it will cost 44 pounds or so.

    I should point out that I don't HAVE the 'user' version but since it
has only features *missing* from the version reviewed just prior, this is
just an update to cover the existence of the cut-down version.

    One more thing. A new tool has been added to both versions of AFS.
It seems Holger Kruse of ReOrg fame has joined the team. He's coded a tool
that converts FFS partitions to AFS. I thought it would be a block moving
ReOrg like thing but no. It operates very quickly indeed. After the
operation is complete, AFS is installed in the RDB etc and it's done. This
will be less efficient than copying off all the data, reformatting the
partition and copying back on for one reason. The way AFS uses the space
left in the last block of the last file written for the next file. This
isn't done with the conversion tool but if you have a LOT of data to
convert, it's still preferable obviously.

    There you have it. Now AFS is at a reasonable cost and has extra
functionality.  Dave Haynie told me that his new version of DiskSalv that
supports AFS is still some weeks away. I must admit, I'm not too concerned
since with AFS I haven't needed it yet. :-) AFAIK it will only be included
in DiskSalv3 which is the commercial version. That right Dave?


HOLD PRESS

    Oh yes, one last thing; Forth Level Developments are now working with
the Zip Drive with the view towards producing a specialised driver for it
which in conjunction with AFS will lead to dramatic performance increases
allegedly. The drive will be rebadged and bundled as a package containing
AFS plus the dedicated driver. I'll post a review after I've had time to
play with the set up. I mention this so that you may avoid placing an order
for a stock unit in advance when perhaps it would be worth waiting to see if
the Forth Level specific driver really does work better with the Zip drive.
It's not clear if you'll be able to buy the driver separately if you already
have a Zip drive.  I presume you would so then again... Chill.

    Stay tuned.


COPYRIGHT NOTICE

    This review is Copyright 1995 by Mat Bettinson and freely
distributable as long as you don't use it commercially, that is, print it in
a commercial magazine. It may *not* be printed in any UK based Amiga
computing magazine full stop.

    BTW I had a few mails asking if I was connected with Forth Level
since I raved about AFS. I'm not. Obviously I review a lot of products daily
since I'm a journalist for CU Amiga Magazine. I chose to compile and post a
review to comp.sys.amiga.reviews because I think it is a product that's
worthy of having attention drawn to it.

    It is most certainly NOT 'Propaganda'. :-/

You can reach me at:

[e-mail]
2:254/205.0@fidonet
39:139/5.0@amiganet
     _ ___
/\/\(-) |  @ darkside.demon.co.uk

---

   Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews
   Send reviews to:    [e-mail]
   Request information:    [e-mail]
   Moderator mail:    [e-mail]
   Anonymous ftp site:  math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews