Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757206AbYCYOow (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:44:52 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1755980AbYCYOoi (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:44:38 -0400 Received: from mexforward.lss.emc.com ([128.222.32.20]:21046 "EHLO mexforward.lss.emc.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754400AbYCYOog (ORCPT ); Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:44:36 -0400 Message-ID: <47E90CDA.600@emc.com> Date: Tue, 25 Mar 2008 10:31:54 -0400 From: Ric Wheeler Reply-To: ric@emc.com User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.12 (Windows/20080213) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Mark Lord CC: Linus Torvalds , Jens Axboe , Jeff Garzik , Tejun Heo , Greg KH l , Andrew Morton , Linux Kernel , IDE/ATA development list , linux-scsi Subject: Re: What to do about the 2TB limit on HDIO_GETGEO ? References: <47E875AD.1000901@rtr.ca> <47E8FF58.8050209@rtr.ca> In-Reply-To: <47E8FF58.8050209@rtr.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-PMX-Version: 4.7.1.128075, Antispam-Engine: 2.5.1.298604, Antispam-Data: 2007.8.30.53115 X-PerlMx-Spam: Gauge=, SPAM=0%, Reason='EMC_BODY_PROD_1+ -3, EMC_FROM_0+ -3, __CT 0, __CTE 0, __CT_TEXT_PLAIN 0, __HAS_MSGID 0, __MIME_TEXT_ONLY 0, __MIME_VERSION 0, __SANE_MSGID 0, __USER_AGENT 0' X-Tablus-Inspected: yes X-Tablus-Classifications: public X-Tablus-Action: allow Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1786 Lines: 48 Mark Lord wrote: > Linus Torvalds wrote: >> >> On Mon, 24 Mar 2008, Mark Lord wrote: >>> The return value uses "unsigned long", >>> which on a 32-bit system limits drive offsets to 2TB. >> >> One relevant question is: does anybody seriously care about the >> combination of "32 bit" and "huge modern drives" any more? >> >> Sure, we can add a 64-bit version that ends up being used only on >> 32-bit systems, but quite frankly, I think the solution here is to >> just ignore the issue and see if anybody really even cares. >> >> Because quite frankly, the kind of people who buy modern 2TB drives >> generally don't then couple them to CPU's that are five+ years old. > .. > > Yeah. Except Dell will undoubtedly have them in desktops > within 2 years, and tons of people (myself included) still use > 32-bit (K)Ubuntu on our systems, simply for the better binary > compatibility that it is perceived to give with things like > browser plugins and stuff. I think that there are many embedded applications (lots of them linux based) which have large amounts of storage behind low power, low cost 32 bit CPU's. Think of the home/small office NAS boxes that you can get from bestbuy or other big box stores. Those devices today have 4 S-ATA drives (each of which can be 1TB in size). Also, if you have a very low end box, it can still access really large storage over iSCSI or a SAN which will present as a local, large device. Over time, even these low end CPU's will migrate towards 64 bits, but we are not there yet... ric -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/