Hi sunil,
HTH,
--
Regards,
Sandeep.
"To learn is to change. Education is a process that changes the learner."
On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 6:16 PM, Sunil <infinite.questions@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Actually, the maximum size of the file system typically depends on the FS itself. I mean, every file system have certain disk layout and and that typically decides its size.
Well, the size of inode entry may generally not decide the size of the file system itself, rather.
So, it all depends on the implementation of the file system itself. Say for example VxFS supports upto 2 TB file systems and WAFL (NetApp) supports upto 16TB.
Also, there are concepts of direct blocks, single indirect, double indirect blocks, which determine these parameters too. I would suggest you to go through "Design of the UNIX operating system" by Maurice Bach, which talk about a very similar concept.
Also, there is a book by steve pate "UNIX filesystems", wherein you can get lots of goods stuffs to understand these basic concepts.
Yes inode has a entry wherein it stores all the block numbers associated with a file.
The second part, I am unable to exactly understand what your question is. But, Remember that we always try to keep the inode structure as small as possible, and hence we have EA, so that we expand the inode only when we reuire it for sure.
Hi,
For a disk file-system, if the on disk layout is static, like EXT2 or UFS, what parameter decides the maximum size of file-system or file on it ? I would guess the 'size of inode entry used to store the block number' will decide the maximum number of blocks it can address. This together with 'size of block' should decide these limits.
Actually, the maximum size of the file system typically depends on the FS itself. I mean, every file system have certain disk layout and and that typically decides its size.
Well, the size of inode entry may generally not decide the size of the file system itself, rather.
So, it all depends on the implementation of the file system itself. Say for example VxFS supports upto 2 TB file systems and WAFL (NetApp) supports upto 16TB.
Also, there are concepts of direct blocks, single indirect, double indirect blocks, which determine these parameters too. I would suggest you to go through "Design of the UNIX operating system" by Maurice Bach, which talk about a very similar concept.
Also, there is a book by steve pate "UNIX filesystems", wherein you can get lots of goods stuffs to understand these basic concepts.
Another thing is, is it a usually followed that this 'inode entry used to store the block number' is usually long, which maps to word size of underlying architecture[correct here if needed]. On 32bit architecture, where word size and hence long is 32bit, if we use long long data type for this, for each comparison of block numbers or in-memory processing of it, one would need to read two words each time. Does it really help to improve performance ? Or it doesnt affect and block number could be long long ?
Yes inode has a entry wherein it stores all the block numbers associated with a file.
The second part, I am unable to exactly understand what your question is. But, Remember that we always try to keep the inode structure as small as possible, and hence we have EA, so that we expand the inode only when we reuire it for sure.
Thanks.
-
Sunil.
HTH,
--
Regards,
Sandeep.
"To learn is to change. Education is a process that changes the learner."
