fat_size_calculation.tex

%  Copyright 2003,2005,2007 Alain Knaff.

% This documentation is for Mtools which is a collection of tools to
% allow Unix systems to manipulate MS-DOS files.

% Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
% under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.3 or
% any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
% Invariant Sections, with no Front-Cover Texts, and with no Back-Cover
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\documentclass[a4paper,12pt]{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage{pslatex}
\usepackage[pdfpagemode=None,colorlinks]{hyperref}

\author{Alain Knaff}
\title{How mformat-3.9.10 and above calculates needed FAT size}

\begin{document}

\maketitle

This small document explains the formula used by {\tt mformat.c} to
figure out fat size and number of clusters. Due to the way that
filesystem parameters are stored in the boot sector, we can afford to
have a FAT that is larger than need to be to accomodate the clusters
present on disk, but under no circumstances can we have one that is
too small.

In this discussion, we use the following variable names:

\begin{tabular}{|r|p{12cm}|}

\hline

$fatNybls$&
Number of nubbles (4 bit unit per FAT). This is 3 for FAT12, 4 for
FAT16, and 8 for FAT16\\

\hline

$numClus$&
Number of clusters on the disk\\

\hline

$clusSiz$&
Size of a cluster, expressed in sectors\\

\hline

$secSiz$&
Size of a sector, in bytes. Size of a sector in nybbles is $secSiz$ * 2\\

\hline

$nfats$&
Number of FAT copies, usually two\\

\hline

$remSects$&
``Remaining sectors'', after number of boot sectors and root directory
have been accounted for\\

\hline

$fatLen$&
Length of the FAT, in sectors\\

\hline


\end{tabular}


Taking into account both data and fat, each cluster takes up the
following number of nybbles (units of 4 bytes):


$$clusSiz * (2*secSiz)  + nfats * fatNybls$$
	
This accounts for the data of the cluster ($clusSiz * secSiz$),
as well as for the space taken up by its descriptor.

The space taken up by all clusters together, plus the space taken by
descriptors for clusters 0 and 1 ($2*nfats*fatNybls$) should be less
than what is available.

Additional sectors may be lost due to slack (you have to use a full
FAT sector, you also have to use a full cluster in the data
area). Thus, an {\em upper bound} for the number of clusters is as
follows:

$$
numClus \le  {2*remSect*secSiz - 2*nfats*fatNybls \over
2*clusSiz*secSiz + nfats*fatNybls}
$$

	                        
$$
numClus \le {(remSect+2*clusSiz)*2*secSiz \over
2*clusSiz*secSiz + nfats*fatNybls} - 2
$$

	   
These will take up at most the following space in one copy of the FAT
(we have to round up, because even a half-full fat sector must be
taken in its entirety)

$$
fatLen \le \left\lceil {  (numClus+2)*fatNybls \over secSiz * 2 } \right\rceil
$$


$$
fatLen \le \left\lceil {
\left( { 2*(remSect+2*clusSiz)*secSiz \over
2*clusSiz*secSiz + nfats*fatNybls} \right) * fatNybls \over
2*secSiz 
} \right\rceil
$$


$$
fatLen \le \left\lceil {
(remSect+2*clusSiz)* fatNybls \over
2*clusSiz*secSiz + nfats*fatNybls
} \right\rceil
$$

The space left after FAT sector has been deduced is now {\em less than
or equal} to what would be needed for the data area of the clusters
(including fractional clusters), which is good, as we may have under
no circumstances {\em more} clusters in the data area than in the FAT.
An important point in this calculation is that we based the needed FAT
size on a {\em fractional} number of clusters, rather than a rounded
down amount of clusters. Indeed, using a rounded down number could
have exposed us to a situation where we had an {\em almost enough}
space for one more cluster (i.e. not enough space for data + FAT, but
enough for data alone). This situation, combined with a situation
where the last FAT sector was flush full could have lead to a
situation where $numClus$ would become too large for the FAT to
accomodate. I think this is clearer with an example:
\begin{itemize}
\item $remSect=4127$, $clusSiz=1$, $nfats=1$
\item (Non rounded down) $numClus={(4127+2)*(1024) \over 1032} -
2 =4094.992$
\item Rounded down: 4094 clusters
\item These fit into 16 FAT sectors, exactly
\item ... leaving us 4095 clusters, which is one to many (because
these 4095 clusters would now need 17 FAT clusters)
\end{itemize}

Keeping the fractional part (0.992) allows us to round {\em up} the
needed number of FAT sectors to 17, nicely solving this problem.

The downside of counting the fractional part however is that we quite
often waste a sector in the really common situation where both $nfats$
and $clusSiz$ are even, while $remSect$ is odd. An easy way to address
this is to substract one from $remSect$ before application of the
formula, if this case is detected. Such operation carries no risk, as
the odd final sector cannot be used to make a full cluster.

There is still a case however, where fatLen must be grown manually
after application of the formula: If numClus exceeds the maximum
number of clusters allowable for FAT12 or FAT16), we need to shrink
$numClus$ after application of the formula, and manually make the FAT
larger in order to take up any excess space.

Also note that as we used upper bounds, we may waste a certain number
of sectors, which an exact calculation may not have wasted. However,
normally, we should not lose more than one sector per FAT copy.

N.B. In its document at \url{http://www.microsoft.com/hwdev/download/hardware/fatgen103.pdf},
Microsoft proposes a much simpler formula. However, this formula is
both wrong (i.e. occasionally it produces a smaller FAT than is
needed for the clusters on disk), less generic (only works for sector
sizes equal to 512), and less efficient (in case of FAT32, it may
waste up to 8 sectors!)

The formula is the following (for FAT16):
$$
fatLen \le \left\lceil { remSect \over 256 * clusSiz + nfats} \right\rceil
$$

Note that it doesn't account for the dummy clusters 0 and 1. Thus, if
we have 258 sectors remaining, with a cluster size of 1, and two FAT
copies, the Microsoft formula mistakenly assumes fatLen = 1. This
leaves 258 - 2 = 256 sectors for clusters, which yields 256 clusters.
However, those clusters do not fit into the FAT, as two clusters are
lost (0 and 1). However, to Micro\$ofts' credit, this is not actually
the formula they're using (tested with $remsect=160056$ and
$clusSize=4$), so this seems to be a documentation issue rather than a
genuine bug.

In case of FAT32, Microsoft just halves the denominator. This is
wasteful, as only the $256*clusSiz$ part would need to be halved.

If we assume 16777000, and a cluster size of 8, our formula would give
us:
$$fatLen = \left\lceil (16777000 + 16) * 8 \over 2 * 8 * 512 + 16
\right\rceil = 16352$$
This would leave $16777000-2*16352=16744296$ sectors for the clusters,
i.e. 2093037 clusters. The FAT descriptors for those 2093037 clusters
do indeed fit into our 16352 fat sectors.

Microsoft, on the other hand, would get: $$fatLen = \left\lceil{
16777000 \over (256 * 8 + 2)/2} \right\rceil = 16368$$ This would only
leave $16777000-2*16368=16744264$, i.e. 2093033 clusters, thus wasting
4 clusters. The FAT would be 28 sectors too big, i.e. more than the
mere 8 sectors announced by Microsoft! Unfortunately, I currently
don't have access to any sufficiently recent Windows to check out
whether this really happens in the code, or whether it is only a
documentation issue as well.

Oh, and before somebody points it out: the formula in this document
occassionnally wastes sectors too, although not as much (Example: With
$remsect=685$, $clusSiz=1$ and $nfats=2$ our formula gives $fatLen=3$,
which leaves 679 clusters. However, we could use $fatLen=2$, leaving
681 clusters,

\end{document}