Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!um-math!hyc
From: hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: "Non-Volatile" Ram Disks
Message-ID: <10050@stag.math.lsa.umich.edu>
Date: 6 Oct 89 01:26:28 GMT
References: <2466@td2cad.intel.com>
Sender: news@math.lsa.umich.edu
Reply-To: hyc@math.lsa.umich.edu (Howard Chu)
Organization: University of Michigan Math Dept., Ann Arbor
Lines: 29
UUCP-Path: {mailrus,umix}!um-math!hyc

In article <2466@td2cad.intel.com> jmarek@td2cad.intel.com (John Marek) writes:
>Are there any "non-volatile" ram disks for the ST.  In general, the way these 
>work is that periodically (or on command) changes are flushed to a backup disk
>file.  On power-up/reboot, the contents of the disk file are written to the 
>memory disk.
>
The Poly/Mega/Ultradisks from Alpha Systems are nonvolatile - plug into the
cartridge port, and use an external power supply. Unless you're specifically
doing something crazy with the HDV_ vectors, (like some malicious program
tries to write zeros over every sector of a random drive?) there's no way
a runaway program on the ST can trash what's on it. I've got a 2meg Ultradisk,
and it's worked well for me so far. (However.... [Isn't there always one of
these?] There's a catch - I haven't thought too hard about this yet, so the
answer may be obvious to any of you reading this... I originally had mine
set up as a single partition, 1988K of space, (and 60K for the printer spooler.)but found that things flaked out and I lost my FATs after a point. I've now
got it set up as two partitions of near 1meg each, and haven't had any trouble.
Hm... It seemed to claim to be a single-sided disk drive. Perhaps that was
too much storage to be addressed by a 12 bit FAT entry?)

>On a semi-related question, is there any problem with keeping an ST running 
>continuously?
>
I usually keep my Mega 4 running all the time. Kept my 1040 running all the
time as well. No problems yet, after 2 years or so...

usual disclaimer... I don't even know anyone at Alpha Systems...!  }-)
--
 -=- PrayerMail: Send 100Mbits to holyghost@father.son[127.0.0.1]
 and You Too can have a Personal Electronic Relationship with God!