2005-04-28 09:08:51

by Iwan Sanders

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: File and partition sizes

Hi,

I am examining the large file support in Linux. A couple of questions
remained unanswered that's why I thought to
ask the experts ;-)

I was wondering what the current size limitation of a partition is and
what kernel versions will allow files larger then
4 GB and why they do that.

Regards,

Iwan Sanders



2005-04-28 11:43:19

by lk

[permalink] [raw]
Subject: Re: File and partition sizes

the table which shows the size limits depending upon the files system...

___________________________________________________________
File System File Size [Byte] File System Size [Byte]
____________________________________________________________
Ext2 or Ext3 (1 kB block size) 2^34 (16 GB) 2^41 (2 TB)
Ext2 or Ext3 (2 kB block size) 2^38 (256 GB) 2^43 (8 TB)
Ext2 or Ext3 (4 kB block size) 2^41 (2 TB) 2^44 (16 TB)
Ext2 or Ext3 (8 kB block size) 2^46 (64 TB) 2^45 (32 TB)
ReiserFS 3.5 2^32 (4 GB) 2^44 (16 TB)
ReiserFS 3.6 (under Linux 2.4) 2^60 (1 EB) 2^44 (16 TB)
XFS 2^63 (8 EB) 2^63 (8 EB)
JFS (512 Bytes block size) 2^63 (8 EB) 2^49 (512 TB)
JFS (4 kB block size) 2^63 (8 EB) 2^52 (4 PB)
NFSv2 (client side) 2^31 (2 GB) 2^63 (8 EB)
NFSv3 (client side) 2^63 (8 EB) 2^63 (8 EB)
____________________________________________________________

apart from this the following kernel limits exist:

On 32-bit systems with Kernel 2.4.x: The size of a file and a block device
is limited to 2 TiB. By using LVM several block devices can be combined
enabling the handling of larger file systems.

64-bit systems: The sizes of a filesytem and of a file are limited by 2^63
(8 EiB). But there might be hardware driver limits that do not allow to
access such large devices.

Kernel 2.6: For both 32-bit systems with option CONFIG_LBD set and for
64-bit systems: The size of a file system is limited to 2^73 (far too much
for today). On 32-bit systems (without CONFIG_LBD set) the size of a file is
limited to 2 TiB. Note that not all filesystems and hardware drivers might
handle such large filesystems.



regards

lk

----- Original Message -----
From: "Iwan Sanders" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, April 28, 2005 2:08 AM
Subject: File and partition sizes


> Hi,
>
> I am examining the large file support in Linux. A couple of questions
> remained unanswered that's why I thought to
> ask the experts ;-)
>
> I was wondering what the current size limitation of a partition is and
> what kernel versions will allow files larger then
> 4 GB and why they do that.
>
> Regards,
>
> Iwan Sanders
>
>
> -
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