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#1 2008-07-07 11:12 pm
- mo' ron
- Hates Integrated Graphics
- From: NC, USA
- Registered: 2002-10-15
- Posts: 13201
File system comparisons
What is the difference between Vista and OSX?
- Microsoft employees are excited about OSX.
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#2 2008-07-08 12:20 am
- Mr. T
- Uses STOS implicitly
- From: omnipresent
- Registered: 2002-04-02
- Posts: 3472
Re: File system comparisons
What's funny? btw, hfs+ supports hard links. I don't know what "partial" means. It either supports it or not. You can't make hard links from the GUI, but that has nothing to do with the file system. Wikipedia is in error here. That's the only mistake I've noticed. Another thing I noticed is that Mac OS 7.1 and later does indeed support FAT32, and I believe FAT16 -- both listed as "?." And Paragon and ntfs3g run only on OS X, and not classic; another mistake. Actually, there might be quite a few mistakes...
Last edited by Mr. T (2008-07-08 12:30 am)
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#3 2008-07-08 12:25 am
- Chickenhawk
- Friends don't let friends hunt drunk
- From: The bad air state
- Registered: 2005-06-01
- Posts: 4604
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#4 2008-07-08 12:29 am
- Mr. T
- Uses STOS implicitly
- From: omnipresent
- Registered: 2002-04-02
- Posts: 3472
Re: File system comparisons
Oh, I see that now. 
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#6 2008-07-08 1:05 am
- cosmicosmo
- Chancellor Mmmm
- From: Peninsula, Ohio, US of A
- Registered: 2003-02-06
- Posts: 223
- Website
Re: File system comparisons
Mr. T wrote:
btw, hfs+ supports hard links. I don't know what "partial" means. It either supports it or not. You can't make hard links from the GUI, but that has nothing to do with the file system. Wikipedia is in error here.
As I understand it, hard links are not natively supported by the HFS+ file system.
HFS+ lacks support in the volume format for hard links, a standard feature of UFS. Initially, the attempted creation of a link to a file would yield a "not supported" error. We had discussed some "80%" solutions, such as creating symbolic links instead, but the semantics of symbolic links are significantly different. For troubleshooting reasons it is preferable to fail at link creation time than at some later time due to problems related to these semantic differences. The problem is that there is a significant amount of software which breaks if hard link creation fails, and some of that software needs to be redesigned if hard links cannot be used. In order to accommodate this software, we now emulate hard links by creating a "kernel-level" symbolic link which is visible only to and interpreted by the HFS+ file system. This was necessary due to the lack of support in the volume format. The resulting behavior is very similar to that of hard links when viewed from above the kernel, though they are relatively inefficient in comparison.
From here.
also see apples discussion.
I hate your wimper
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#7 2008-07-08 2:45 pm
Re: File system comparisons
I am glad my wife is safe with my file system choices.
How can a person still have any hopes
who is addicted to what's superficial,
who grubs with greedy hand for treasures
and then is happy to discover earthworms! - Goethe
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#8 2008-07-08 4:26 pm
- ephemeron
- Member
- Registered: 2003-06-23
- Posts: 215
Re: File system comparisons
And if I'm reading the history right, that version stood for seven hours before somebody caught it. That's not bad.
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#9 2008-07-09 12:34 am
- Mr. T
- Uses STOS implicitly
- From: omnipresent
- Registered: 2002-04-02
- Posts: 3472
Re: File system comparisons
cosmicosmo wrote:
Mr. T wrote:
btw, hfs+ supports hard links. I don't know what "partial" means. It either supports it or not. You can't make hard links from the GUI, but that has nothing to do with the file system. Wikipedia is in error here.
As I understand it, hard links are not natively supported by the HFS+ file system.
HFS+ lacks support in the volume format for hard links, a standard feature of UFS. Initially, the attempted creation of a link to a file would yield a "not supported" error. We had discussed some "80%" solutions, such as creating symbolic links instead, but the semantics of symbolic links are significantly different. For troubleshooting reasons it is preferable to fail at link creation time than at some later time due to problems related to these semantic differences. The problem is that there is a significant amount of software which breaks if hard link creation fails, and some of that software needs to be redesigned if hard links cannot be used. In order to accommodate this software, we now emulate hard links by creating a "kernel-level" symbolic link which is visible only to and interpreted by the HFS+ file system. This was necessary due to the lack of support in the volume format. The resulting behavior is very similar to that of hard links when viewed from above the kernel, though they are relatively inefficient in comparison.
From here.
also see apples discussion.
Indeed, it would seem that I am in error, here. However, I would argue that there are effectively two HFS+ specifications: "HFS+ (official)" which does not support hard links, and "HFS+ (alternate)" which supports hard links within the confines of the official spec (incurring some performance penalty). OS 9 thus implements the official spec, whereas OS X implements the alternate spec.
Last edited by Mr. T (2008-07-09 12:36 am)
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