From: parag@netcom.com (Parag Patel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Silverlining vs. ?
Date: 13 Jul 92 19:55:47 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

From: parag@netcom.com (Parag Patel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps
Subject: Re: Silverlining vs. ?
Date: 13 Jul 92 19:55:47 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

Well, I went right to the source.  I forwarded the various questions
about Drive7 to Kit Fitzpatrick who is one of its authors.  He asked me
to post his replys as he does not have access to USENET.  His current
contracting job has provided him with a temporary email address at
<fitzpatrick#m#_kit@engmsmail.apple.com> should you wish to ask any more
questions about Drive7.  I'll try to foward any other postings to him.

Kit has two replys here - one about the speed of Drive7, and the other
about resizing partitions without re-initializing them.  Much applies to
other formatters as well.

(A personal disclaimer:  While Kit is a friend of mine, I am a user of
Drive7 and have been a beta-tester for it.  If I didn't like it or if it
didn't work, I wouldn't have even mentioned it.  I am not affiliated
with Casa Blanca or Drive7 in any other way, other than as a very
satisfied user.)


	-- Parag Patel <parag@Netcom.COM>

-------------------
Subject: Speed of Drive7 and other formatters

As one of the authors of Drive7 I can assure you that the difference in the
speed of the drivers is negligible.  Most of the time spent reading and writing
files is spent in HFS itself.  The next big chunk of time is spent waiting for
the access time of the drive - seek time plus rotational latency and then
transfer rate.  After that you get to the time spent in the SCSI manager and
only then do you get to the driver.  I can't quote exact speed difference, but
I have been told our drivers are faster than Silver Lining and FWB.  The person
doing the testing may or may not have chosen the best settings for each of the
products tested - so beware: your milage may vary.
The reason our software is less expensive is simply we are the new kids on the
block.  Both Silver Lining and FWB are fine products with a good reputation and
an installed base.  We can't blow them away with feature set or speed, we can
only match them.  We attacked the two things that we could.  One is price and
the other is ease of use.  I have been frustrated more than once by the user
interface of Silver Lining and the complexity of FWB.  I hope this is enough to
get you to consider using our product.

Kit Fitzpatrick

---------------------------------------------
SUbject: Resizing partitions without initializing

| Original Message:
|If the other programs do not allow this resizing without initializing,
|why not?  Does Silverlining use a software partition?

To my knowlege Silver Lining is the only formatter that can resize partitions
without reformatting.  To accomplish this piece of magic, they need to
manipulate the file system on the disk.  This is fairly equivelent to the kind
of work a disk defragmentation tool.  It carries the same risks of corruption
in cases of power failure - but you always back up first anyway, right?  Inside
Macintosh expressly forbids resizing partitions on the hard disk (other than
free partitions), but given you can manipulate the file system properly they
are being too conservative.

I am not exactly sure how extensivly Silver Lining manipulates the file system,
so I will pass along one reason to be cautious.  The HFS file system attempts
to tune some of it's file allocation parameters based on the size of the
volume.  If you initialize the file system with one set of parameters and then
*radically* change it's size, you may not be happy with the results.  I don't
think any real damage can occur, but I haven't stressed HFS enough to trust it.

Disclaimer and plug.  I am one of the authors of Drive7 and therefore have a
bias for my product.  I do think Silver Lining is a good product and a worthy
competitor, especially that one feature that we don't have.  I have seriously
considered adding it to Drive7, but I wonder if it would be worth the
investment.  I would like to know how much you value the feature in terms of
retail price.  Is it worth another $75?  Maybe $25?  Maybe you don't want to
pay for it because Silver Lining already has it?  Should we produce a product
with more tools and complexity and price it higher?  I would appreciate any
feedback from the net.

Kit Fitzpatrick
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