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From: bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.large
Subject: Re: Files > 4GB
Message-ID: <1180@red.qtp.ufl.edu>
Date: 10 Nov 90 16:14:16 GMT
References: <1008@intelisc.isc.intel.com> <1990Nov9.170337.9484@onion.pdx.com>
Reply-To: bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu (David E. Bernholdt)
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of Florida Quantum Theory Project
Lines: 27

In article <1990Nov9.170337.9484@onion.pdx.com> jeff@onion.pdx.com writes:
>Well, that would take one big disk :-)  Unix files can not span physical disk
>partitions, at least on more common version of Unix. (Has anyone changed this?)

I think a lot of people (vendors) have worked on this one way or
another.  One of the most common methods for "minisupers" is disk
striping, where several disks are combined into a single logical disk.
Take 4 x 1GB disks on 4 controllers and you have a big, fast disk 4GB
in size.  

If you want something really big, make a RAID array of 1GB disks!

Also, IBM's AIX on our RS/6000 has a mechanism which allows all kinds
of manipulations of the disks into all sorts of logical partitions,
including spanning across physical drives.  I think Sun has this too.
Perhaps others too...

Of course it still depends on the kernel if individual files can be > 4GB.

There are many users out there who really do need file systems larger
than a single drive & even files larger than a single drive.  I'm sure
its only a matter of time...
-- 
David Bernholdt			bernhold@qtp.ufl.edu
Quantum Theory Project		bernhold@ufpine.bitnet
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL  32611		904/392 6365