Path: rcfnews.cs.umass.edu!barrett From: mat@darkside.demon.co.uk (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 Lines: 156 Sender: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu (comp.sys.amiga.reviews moderator) Distribution: world Message-ID: <3um74c$hbh@kernighan.cs.umass.edu> Reply-To: mat@darkside.demon.co.uk (Mat Bettinson) NNTP-Posting-Host: astro.cs.umass.edu Keywords: filesystem, disk, commercial, followup Originator: barrett@astro.cs.umass.edu 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: +44(0)117-985-4455 Fax: +44(0)117-955-9157 E-mail: afssales@flevel.demon.co.uk English only, AFAIK. There's a public AFS mailing list now. Send email to emailurl@flevel.demon.co.uk with the following line in the body of the letter: SUBSCRIBE AFS Send mailing list posts to afslist@flevel.demon.co.uk. 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: mat@darkside.demon.co.uk 2:254/205.0@fidonet 39:139/5.0@amiganet _ ___ /\/\(-) | @ darkside.demon.co.uk --- Daniel Barrett, Moderator, comp.sys.amiga.reviews Send reviews to: amiga-reviews-submissions@math.uh.edu Request information: amiga-reviews-requests@math.uh.edu Moderator mail: amiga-reviews@math.uh.edu Anonymous ftp site: math.uh.edu, in /pub/Amiga/comp.sys.amiga.reviews