From owner-freebsd-stable Tue Mar 19 15:46:23 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from www.smluc.org (smluc.org [206.138.44.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 3B69A37B402 for ; Tue, 19 Mar 2002 15:46:18 -0800 (PST) Received: (qmail 2666 invoked by uid 1000); 19 Mar 2002 23:46:18 -0000 Date: 19 Mar 2002 23:46:18 -0000 Message-ID: <20020319234618.2665.qmail@www.smluc.org> From: erik@www.smluc.org To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Problems with large disk. (> 1 TB) Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG "Joseph Gleason" said: > I don't have a solution for you, but I am pretty sure I know the problem: > > calc 2^31*512 = 1TB. > > disklabel references everything using a unit of 512 byte sectors. That > number of sectors I'm sure is stored as an unsigned int making 2^31-1 the > max number of sectors. Aka, just under a TB is fine, one TB or over is bad. > > So the 32mb dos partition probably made it just under a TB. > hrm, this could be a fairly important issue in the near future. What if the disk label info was given a word width? like say a 1byte field 'n' stashed somewhere to tell the machine "hey, this is an 8*2^n bit fs/disk"? would require a reworking of the fs driver and tools, but it should give a fair amount of breathing room, and big bragging rights? (we can do 56539106072908298546665520023773392506479484700019806659891398441363832832 terabytes and don't consume unnecessary hdd space) as well as being fairly efficient for small drives like on embedded devices? Sorry, had to open my mouth so I can look like an idiot ;) > Maybe someone else knows a solution for this problem. mebbe multiple partitions on each disk, multiple disk slices inside of each all raided together? :) or hack the utils and fs driver to do 64b stuff? -Erik [http://math.smsu.edu/~erik] The opinions expressed by me are not necessarily opinions. In all probability, they are random rambling, and to be ignored. Failure to ignore may result in severe boredom or confusion. Shake well before opening. Keep Refrigerated. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message