Re: [ARMini-support] SparkFS and Fat32fs
- From: Chris Johnson <chris@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: armini-support@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 17:44:43 +0000 (GMT)
In article <53a983c64bjcgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jim Lesurf <jcgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> 1) Am I correct in that the ARMiniX doesn't need Fat32fs to read
> the FAT partition on the mains SD card once the bootup is complete?
> i.e. once the machine has booted the Fat partition should simply be
> ignored and no access to it is needed.
Assuming you have a normal 'dual partition' card, then Fat32Fs is
*not* needed at all for the boot process. The files in the FAT
partition are read by the 'BIOS' before RISC OS starts. RISC OS is
booting via SDFS. Fat32Fs is only used when you access a Fat device
afterwards. If you have a SSD fitted which is FAT formatted then it
will be needed to be run in PreDesk, but otherwise there is no need
for it. However, from the figures for RMA you quoted you obviously do
not have a large SSD, and only use small memory sticks, so it can be
run when required.
The RMA is not managed as a sliding heap. It will reuse space if
there is a slot of sufficient size available, but will not
automatically move stuff to fill the holes. The way Fat32Fs keeps
claiming new blocks even when a drive is dismounted and then
remounted immediately might suggest that a small area of the
nominally free block has been claimed so the disc map no longer fits
in the previous slot. Whatever, the RMA does grow and you can imagine
how quickly when the drives mounted/dismounted are 120 - 300 GB in
size rather than the 4GB you were using.
Anyway, my original thought would have more relevance if you (a) were
using large (120GB or more) hard or SSD drives and (b) the cards you
were mounting/dismounting were larger, say 32 GB.
--
Chris Johnson
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