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Date:	Wed, 17 Sep 2003 10:11:21 PDT7
From:	Peter Skye <pskye@peterskye.com >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: HPFS Defragmenter?

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Peter Hooper wrote:
>
> Its a SCSI drive and I'm running Warp -
> could I upgrade the drive to HPFS386?

Hi Peter,

1. HPFS386 is a separate license, so first you need to obtain a copy.
My understanding is that if you own one HPFS386 license then IBM will
allow you to install HPFS386 on all your machines.

2. The HPFS and vanilla HPFS386 file systems are pretty much the same.
It's the driver that is different.

3. Partition Magic may scramble the HPFS386 extended info if you use
some of the enhanced HPFS386 features (ACLs [Access Control Lists] for
example) because extra info is added to the directory entries and
Partition Magic doesn't understand this. I don't know about DFSee.

4. Installing "vanilla" HPFS386 is basically just replacing the driver;
change HPFS.IFS to HPFS386.IFS in your CONFIG.SYS. You can always
revert back to the HPFS driver -- in fact, one HPFS guru told me that
this is one way to defeat the ACL and Local Security features in HPFS386
since the HPFS driver doesn't check (maybe the latest HPFS driver
does). (Reverting from HPFS386 to HPFS won't hurt the data but may mess
up some of the ACL and Local Security info, so don't bounce back and
forth indiscriminately without saving/restoring the ACLs.)

5. To use Partition Magic to downsize an HPFS386 volume, PowerQuest used
to recommend converting it to an HPFS volume first since keeping it as
an HPFS386 volume would create an "error". Ouch. Always back up first.

6. There is a PREPACL program to fiddle with the ACLs. I think you can
back up and then remove the ACLs with it, then switch to the HPFS driver
and resize the partition with Partition Magic, then go back to the
HPFS386 driver and use the program once again to restore the ACLs. This
should also work with DFSee and, again, I don't know if DFSee handles
HPFS386 without all this extra work. See your LAN Server or Warp Server
eBusiness books for PREPACL info (might be under "Administrator Tasks"
or somesuch).

7. BACKACC and RESTACC back up and restore the NET.ACC user ID file. I
can't remember how this ties into HPFS386 but I do remember it was part
of at least some conversions.

8. Don't forget to remake your OS/2 boot floppies/CDs so they now have
the HPFS386 driver.

9. I think there is an HPFS386 fixpack. One note I have is that it is
called IP_8532 but that might be incorrect and it might not be the
latest fixpak. Apologies for not having more info, you'll have to
research this one.

10. From memory and scattered notes, the \IBM386FS\ directory contains
the file system stuff and the \IBMLAN\NETPROG\ directory contains some
files you need (PREPACL.EXE, CACHE386.EXE, plus CAC.MSG and CACH.MSG).

11. You should completely back up twice before doing this. I'm not
kidding -- things go wrong and sometimes there's an error on your backup
tape when you try to restore so having two copies is "a real good
idea". I got tired of tape errors and now back up to hard drive.

> I know the cache will need to be
> populated - i.e. slow first time.

No. It is populated at the same speed. But since the cache is bigger
the old info is held in it longer.

> However, will a cache speed up reading the entries?

Yes. Since info remains in the cache longer, it is more likely to be
there when you read it a second time. There is also something called
"lookahead" which might increase -- check the HPFS386 driver parameters.

> The cache must be invalidated somehow - I assume
> by the file time stamp, and so will need to read
> these off the HD anyhow. Am I right?

Yes. My understanding is that vanilla HPFS386 discards the oldest
cached info to make room for new, and there are some driver options
(which I've never tried) to change this behaviour.

> Am I just staring an upgrade in the face?
> - i.e. A faster HD? / e-business ?

Don't expect the bigger cache to work miracles. The mathematical
science called "Queueing Theory" describes how effective the cache will
be in any given situation, but basically the bigger cache won't speed
things up much unless you read the same files over and over again (in
which case they'll come straight from the cache) or you write very large
files to disk (in which case they'll be written to the cache first thus
allowing the program doing the writing to finish sooner).

I have a financial system which uses a huge number of small control
files that are read over and over again. A larger disk cache would
speed this up quite a bit but I use a simpler method -- on bootup I load
all the control files onto a RAM disk and do the processing from there.
Sort of a "permanent cache".

- Peter

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