NS/OS partitions size

NeXT Computer, Inc. -> NEXTSTEP / OPENSTEP Software

Title: NS/OS partitions size
Post by: coriolis1986 on January 30, 2021, 02:48:47 AM
Hi all.

As I know max size of hard disk parition for NS is 2 GB and for OS is 4GB.

Is it possible to make 2 GB system partition and another significantly bigger partition for user files? May be there is a some kind of driver for this?
Title: Re: NS/OS partitions size
Post by: wa2flq on January 30, 2021, 06:25:25 PM
Generally, you can have different partition sizes to the limit that the OS supports.  IDE drives are limited to 4 Partitions and a few other limitations (BIOS) on real hardware and VM.

The utilities and native drivers are present to support this, but they can be somewhat quirky on large disks.  Some utilities wrap around on boundary conditions with few warnings or errors.  Lookup information on disktab and the commands disk and fdisk to begin.  Make sure you have a fully patched system.

Note that for Openstep, while the disk partition can be 4 GB, not all the utilities and applications can deal with files or data > 2GB.   In most cases this is by design or use of 32 signed signed integers.

Some people have used NFS shares to exceed the boundaries, but I don't have first hand experience doing this.  


   Jerry
Title: Re: NS/OS partitions size
Post by: Andreas on February 06, 2021, 04:58:56 AM
Quote from: coriolis1986 on January 30, 2021, 02:48:47 AMHi all.

As I know max size of hard disk parition for NS is 2 GB and for OS is 4GB.

Is it possible to make 2 GB system partition and another significantly bigger partition for user files? May be there is a some kind of driver for this?

Not that i'm known. But if you have a bigger disk, you can mount partitions on bootprocess on the needed points. For example, on my NeXTs i have the 2GB root / and then another 2GB mounted to /LocalApps, the next 2GB mounted on /LocalLibrary and the next as /Stuff, for archive and to work temporary with this.
So the system works with 8GB hd space at all.
Title: Re: NS/OS partitions size
Post by: user341 on February 07, 2021, 01:03:36 PM
Also, the 2ndary mounts other than the boot drive can be 4GB partitions. I used to run that all the time when I had black hardware. I did it by using 1024blocks instead fo 512, but there may be other ways too.

Lastly, I even managed to get the 'boot' drive to be a 4GB partition. this was done with a 'kick' drive. A small drive started the boot up, and it basically pointed to the 1024 block drive, that finished the boot. It could even be a floppy drive.
Title: Re: NS/OS partitions size
Post by: Morgon on February 07, 2021, 01:54:54 PM
Quote from: zombie on February 07, 2021, 01:03:36 PMAlso, the 2ndary mounts other than the boot drive can be 4GB partitions. I used to run that all the time when I had black hardware. I did it by using 1024blocks instead fo 512, but there may be other ways too.

Lastly, I even managed to get the 'boot' drive to be a 4GB partition. this was done with a 'kick' drive. A small drive started the boot up, and it basically pointed to the 1024 block drive, that finished the boot. It could even be a floppy drive.

You need to watch out with this. Only SCSI devices support a total size of more than 8 GB over all partitions.
IDE devices are limited to 8 GB by the device driver. Thus on an IDE device the last partition may not end above the 8 GB limit.
Title: Re: NS/OS partitions size
Post by: user341 on February 08, 2021, 01:34:02 AM
Back then it was an accomplishment to have a 4GB drive in total. And my drives were all, always, SCSI (it was black hardware).

But it's a great tip/point to make note of.

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