Old File System

The file system supplied as standard with early Amiga's. It was slow and only allowed 488 bytes to be stored on each track. There were three versions released that corrected bugs in the previous release.

DOS0: The original file system

DOS2: The international version that corrected a bug with the storage of foreign letters so they were no longer case-sensitive.

DOS4: The directory caching edition that speeded up access to directories.

Fast File System

A replacement for the Old File System that allowed more to be stored on a disk. On Kickstart 1.3 this was stored on disk meaning that it was impossible to boot directly from FFS disks, but since Kickstart 2.04 it has been stored in ROM since version 2.

DOS1: The original Fast File System found in 2.0

DOS3: The International version. Available as upgrade in OS2.1

DOS5: The Directory Caching version. Available in OS3.0+. Previous versions cannot read this.

A number of file systems have become available that push the Amiga disk drive to its limit, including Professional File System, Ami-File Safe and DiskSpare. To find out more information read the "SystemGuide" by Dan Elgaard.