The SpartaDOS File System
The proprietary file system format, called SpartaDOS FS, (unrelated to and not compatible with MS-DOS FAT) offers full support for subdirectories, MS-DOS-like attributes (AHPS: Archived, Hidden, Protected, Subdirectory), modification date and time stamps, random access to data within a file, sparse files.
The file naming convenience is 8+3 (this scheme, inherited from CP/M, is normal on Atari). The directory structure is hierarchical, there are no other than practical limits in nesting directories. A directory can contain up to 1423 entries of files and other directories.
The file system is 16-bit: a drive can contain up to 65535 logical sectors (sector 0 does not exist on Atari disks). The logical sector size is 128 or 256 bytes in earlier versions, and 128, 256 and 512 bytes as of v. 4.40. This makes a maximum capacity of 16 MB per partition in earlier versions, and 32 MB as of v.4.40. A 4 GB per disk - by making sector clusters, up to 65536 bytes per cluster - is theoretically possible, but not yet implemented.
Read more about this topic: Sparta DOS X, Characteristics
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