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What is drive, what is partition, what is logical drive


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Couple new threads, post in old thread appeared here recently. It is obvious that there is confusion about terms, about how to deal with mass storage - yes, that's general term for large capacity storage for computers. So, I will spend some time and try to explain it in understandable way for average users.

 

1. Drive means physical component - disk drive in case. And that can be floppy drive or hard disk drive (even if latest word is not used normally) . But there is more: we call Flash storage (all those SD, CF cards, Pen drive) drive too, even if it has no moving parts, because from computer's, driver SW's point of view they are same (same driver code can work with both) .

 

2. A: and B: are symbols for floppy drives. With low capacity. Normally under 2 MB . And there are no partitions on floppy disks, of course .

 

3. At C: begin hard disk partitions or logical drives - 2 terms mean same. It may be that one logical drive is really one physical drive (not not 100% of it's capacity, only 99.9% ) . That's when there is only 1 partition (logical drive) on disk (called often media) . But more common case is that one hard disk, Flash card, media has multiple partitions.

Then we may have following:

A: - first floppy drive

B: - virtual second floppy drive - when no real one attached. Then TOS will ask you to become D.J. :)

B: - real second floppy drive

C: - first partition on first hard disk

D: - second partition on first hard disk

E: - third partition on first hard disk

F: - first partition on second hard disk

and so on ....

 

Or:

C: first and only partition on first hard disk

D: first partition on second hard disk

and so on ...

 

Using SCSI hard disk with some Atari ST(E) in 2018 ?

That's really not best idea. Unless you have some such disks, which are compatible with old adapters, and even then it may be not cheap adventure.

Will need ACSI-SCSI adapter and additional power supply (only Mega STE has enough strong PSU to power it - no wonder, it has even place and even ACSI-SCSI adapter built in)

 

What is available today: https://shop.inventronik.de/index.php?id_product=12&controller=product&id

 

Of course, may use some second hand ICD ACSI-SCSI adapter. I had such.

ACSI_CF_AdSCSI.jpg

ICD adapter is that with round battery (RTC clock included) in middle, upper part. Left from it is SCSI drive. What is not visible is additional PSU, but you may see where power cable goes.

All in all expensive solution, what takes lot of space. + there will be noise all time.

 

Isn't it better to go on some Flash card based solution ? Sure, will be cheaper at the end, Some can handle 2 medias (2 SD cards). And is even faster than many hard disks.

 

Ah, the speed: Satandisk is very slow: max transfer rate is 150 KB/sec . UltraSatan and his SD card equivalent CosmosEx (both designed by Jookie) can up to 1 MB/sec . There are some others, not so popular and known. Or not available for buy - user needs self to assemble it. And that's the case with IDE adapters for ST machines. I don't know is anything available at moment, assembled. But even then, it needs some skill, equipment (min soldering iron) to add it to your ST(E) . However, IDE may be cheapest solution. Well, until moment that you realize that CF cards cost much more than SD cards - if you will see them at all in shops. Yeah, there is solution called IDE-SD adapter - worked fine for me in Falcon, and for sure works in some ST with IDE adapter.

Speed of IDE: pretty much good - up to 1.6 MB/sec . With some tricky solutions, little cut in STE may be up to 3.6 MB/sec . See that shortcut on RCA connector at left on pic. above ? On white "isolation card" - that's for that type of adapter - not connected in this case, of course. But there is description and speed tests, and movies on my site ...

 

Finally: Gotek or HxC as 'hard disk' :


Because they are connected to floppy port, and not ACSI port, possible max speed is low - some 25 KB/sec - yes, same as with real floppies. There is SW what will access Flash card inserted in those adapters like hard disk - considering capacity, partitions. So, you may have mentioned C,D ... logical drives. But very slow. It's on you folks, will you try it ... Don't ask me where to get such driver SW .Try with google, for instance.

Edited by ParanoidLittleMan
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Should be stickied honestly. I mean I've known all this for years, but people new to the ST definitely could use this information.

 

Though you did forget that the TT also can handle an internal SCSI hard drive, though I think it uses a real SCSI controller, vs the ACSI-> SCSI that the Mega STe has. Also for Falcon users, who have no ACSI, SCSI or IDE are the only solutions there.

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I did not forget anything. This is just short guide what I made after post and e-mail to me from rcamp48 .

 

If we want to be accurate, none of this old Ataris has 'real SCSI controller' - all it is very old, and can not work with newer SCSI drives. I have some Quantum Atlas 10 GB drives, working well with PCI SCSI card in PC, but work not even on TT .

For Falcon you can use IDE to SD adapters too. And may be some cartridge port solutions.

And we could talk here over several pages about all Atari mass storage related things ... There is a lot of it on my WEBsite. And around the clock, pardon WEB .

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