512 byte magic multiplier (was: Large File support and blocks)

From: Daniel Phillips (news-innominate.list.linux.kernel@innominate.de)
Date: Fri Sep 01 2000 - 11:37:50 EST


Linda Walsh wrote:
> It may not matter too too much, but blocks are being passed around as
> 'ints'. On the ia32 architecture, this implies a maximum of 512*2G->1T
> disk size. Probably don't need to worry about this today, but in a few
> years? Should we be changing the internal interfaces to use a long (or
> a long unsigned -- why signed?) Maybe for 2.5/2.6 timeframe? Just
> curious...

As far as the VFS goes, this is only in the fs-dependent part of the
inode. The practical effect is the same.

What I'd like to add is: while we're at it, how about losing the 512
byte magic multiplier and go with the filesystem block size? That way
Ext2 file size automatically goes up by a factor of 8 every time we
manage to double the filesystem block size (blocksize*2 and triple
indirect => 2**3).

--
Daniel
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