Reaching Beyond Two-Terabyte Filesystems

Jeremy Andrews writes: "Peter Chubb posted a patch to the lkml, with which he's now managed to mount a 15 terabyte file (using JFS and the loopback device). Without the patch, Peter explains, "Linux is limited to 2TB filesystems even on 64-bit systems, because there are various places where the block offset on disc are assigned to unsigned or int 32-bit variables." Peter works on the Gelato project in Australia. His efforts include cleaning up Linux's large filesystem support, removing 32-bit filesystem limitations. When I asked him about the new 64-bit filesystem limits, he offered a comprehensive answer and this interesting link. The full thread can be found here on KernelTrap. Reaching beyond terabytes, beyond pentabytes, on into exabytes. I feel this sudden discontent with my meager 60 gigabyte hard drive..."

Comments

Testing

[Rick the Red]

The thought of generating the test files is mind-boggling. Unless you work at CERN, where they probably have 16T files just lying around...

Re:Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

actually its not that hard. I have a problem right now and I have to go back to the drawing board cause of the data requirements. Basically I require (150)^N elements in a hyper matrix of doubles. I was hoping I could solve 20 diminesional problems using this techinque but that is ~3.43E43 doubles or (1Tb)^3 in memory requirements which is approximately similar in hard disk requirements if I tried to page it out to disk.

cheers

Re:Testing

[ajs]

#!/usr/bin/perl
# This creates a "sparse file" of 16 terabytes.
# It will not test all attributes of file creation,
# as the blocks on disk are not actually written,
# but it will fail on modern Linux boxes. Now,
# the question of whether Perl is 64-bit clean,
# down to the seek(2) call is interesting....
$tmpf = "ohmyyourabigoneaintcha";
open(TESTFILE,">$tmpf") ;
seek(TESTFILE,0,(1024**4) * 16);
close(TESTFILE);
print "Test file ($tmpf) is ", -s($tmpf), " bytes\n";

Re:Testing

[caseydk]

Actually it's PETAbytes, NOT pentabytes. On a project that I'm on, there's discussion fo 9 Petabyte storage systems.

Re:Testing

[cscx]

This is probably the worst place ever to mention this, but:

Since NTFS support under Linux is pretty shoddy, maybe it's time to get serious here and switch to Windows 2000. Recall that NTFS theoretically has NO maximum file size.

On the other hand, if you are doing your calculations using Linux-proprietary software, you could mount the Win2k storage array as a samba volume under Linux, and store your data using, say, gigabit ethernet. Another solution is to write proxy software to create an in-between filesystem between the program and the actual filesystem. The data would be stored contiguously in a "virtual filesystem", which would actually consist of multiple files in the actual file system.

Since this software is pretty new, I don't know if I'd trust it with any Terabyte-sized files right now.

To see a real-world example of huge amounts of data, visit Microsoft TerraServer. From the site:

"All the imagery and meta-data displayed on the TerraServer web site is stored in Microsoft SQL Server databases. The TerraServer image data is partitioned across three SQL Server 2000 1.5 TB databases. USGS aerial imagery is partitioned across two 1.5 TB databases. The USGS topographical data is stored in a single 1.5 TB database. Each database server runs on a separate, active server in the four-node Windows 2000 Datacenter Server cluster... (Let mySQL try THAT...)"

"Microsoft TerraServer runs exclusively on Compaq servers and storage arrays. Compaq Corporation donated the 4 Compaq ProLiant 8500 database servers. The disk storage equipment, 13.5 TB in total, was donated by the StorageWorks division of Compaq Corporation. The web servers are eight Compaq ProLiant DL360, "1u" processors."

See... Bill DOES know where you live! ;-)

Re:Testing

[rseuhs]

.... Server 2000 1.5 TB databases. USGS aerial imagery is partitioned across two 1.5 TB databases. The USGS topographical data is stored in a single 1.5 TB ....

1.5 TB 2 TB

Re:Testing

[cscx]

Which only goes to show... who needs files about 20 TB? And why is the Linux community worried about it then? People who are dealing with files that big probably have lots of $money$, and can spare using a free OS.

Re:Testing

[rseuhs]

You've never worked in a large organisation, did you? (despite the homepage you mentioned ;-)

Actually big organizations with lots of money are much more likely to use a free OS for custom implementations because it's a lot more reliable, faster (and cheaper, but they have tons of cash, so that's not the deciding point) to modify Linux/BSD than to hope some other corp will put out an OS that works for you.

Re:Testing

[cscx]

Not so sure about that; The Windows NT family still reigns as the most popular server OS. Linux is a close second, followed by Novell, then other Unixes, and probably MacOS shortly after.

When talking enterprises, I think you're wrong. For huge organizations, there's probably 3 that reign: WinNT for Windows implementations, BSDi's BSD/OS or Sun's Solaris for UNIX implementations, and there's always IBM's OS/400.

I dunno. Maybe you've had different experiences, perhaps all in areas using free OSes? This would be especially true if you're a Linux admin!

Re:Testing

[rseuhs]

Not so sure about that; The Windows NT family still reigns as the most popular server OS. Linux is a close second,

Did you notice that IDC did not release numbers this year for the first time?

Probably because Windows is no longer number 1.

And Windows was only dominating "old" niches like printservers and fileservers. In every market that is younger than 10 years Windows presence is pretty weak.

Re:Testing

[Anonymous Coward]

Any other random guesses you'd you like to share?

Re:Testing

[Geeky]

Don't forget OS/390 - Mainframes are still very much in the picture for very large volumes of data. With a mainframe, you get enough I/O to actually make it feasible to access all that data...

!! Yes !!

[Anonymous Coward]

cool

Brain Contents

[dscottj]

I seem to recall reading, probably in a science fiction book, that the human brain is thought to store somewhere in the neighborhood of ~2-4 terabytes of information.

Aside from all sorts of quantum fiddly bit problems, I wonder just how long it will be before we can store the state of every neuron in a brain (doesn't have to be human, at least not at first) on a hard drive.

Of course, then what would you do with it?

Re:Brain Contents

[or_smth]

You'd think that since the brain (obviously) doesn't store in bytes/bits, every estimate you hear would be bullshit.

Seriously, I'm wondering how exactly they "estimate" that.

Re:Brain Contents

[Junta]

The storage capacity of the brain is a slibbery thing, first off, no one fully understands exactly how it wokrs, but it at least seems that the state of the neurons as well as the state of connections between them is related to this.
Second, the estimate goes up as our notions of what big storage is. I don't think any seriousperson would acribe any sort of byte value. But if you think about it, we don't have that much capacity in our minds, our data storage is extremely lossy and we have very good minds that involve deriving a likely past state based on very few details.

Re:Brain Contents

[AlastairMurray]

I'm sure I read somewhere that all sensory experience for a human with an average life time can be stored in 3.5 Petabytes.
But obviously the brain doesn't remember everything.

Re:Brain Contents

[Anonymous Coward]

There are about 10 billion to 100 billion neurons.

Each of these are typically connected to 1000 to 10 000 other neurons.

Brain facts

Re:Brain Contents

[Easy2RememberNick]

Yeah that'll be good, put a back-up copy of your brain on a multi-terabyte(or larger) storage media and then forget about it and leave it in your car on a hot summer day. Oh! My brain back-up is in my car!

BTW How do you back up a exo-byte, with an Iomega exo-drive?

What's up with Constellation 3D and those other guys who are developing TB capable disks? Anyone get it to market yet or soon? C3D said on their website that they had an HD-TV recorder working and displayed at a treade show it but I haven't seen anything about it yet.

Re:Brain Contents

[Tablizer]

(* You'd think that since the brain (obviously) doesn't store in bytes/bits, every estimate you hear would be bullshit.....Seriously, I'm wondering how exactly they "estimate" that. *)

I don't think the fact that the brain is not digital should prevent equivalency efforts. Music is not initially digital either, but we still know the issues in translating. Generally, the same issues apply: how "accurate" do you want the representation? For example, does the neuron "firing threashold" value need to be stored at double precision? Maybe one byte is enuf. Do we need to store the activation curve for each one, or can each cell be tagged into a "group" that supplies a sufficient activation approximation formula? That we don't really know.

How accurate the representation needs to be is still hotly debated. We can do things to our brain like drink wine or coffee, which alter its state a bit, and kill some cells, yet it does not crash (at least not stay crashed). Thus, it does seem to have fairly high tolerances, meaning that super-detailed emulation is probably not necessary for a practical representation.

Re:Brain Contents

[packeteer]

ok sure ill give uyou this... the barin doesn't store music in digital format but music isn't digital either... but the fact is WE HAVE NO DAMN IDEA how the brain stores data... in fact saying its digital is just about as likely as anything else right now... so really anyone's guess could be correct right now...

Re:Brain Contents

[the_crowbar]

I am not a neurologist, but I think the problem with this is how do you extract the state of every neuron in a brin? the_crowbar

Re:Brain Contents

[Sarunas]

The brain has about 10^12 neurons, with about 10^15 connections between them. Each of those connections has a semantic meaning based on it's location and specific connections. If you were to create a purely digital copy of all of that information (ie transcribe everything in a sample brain onto a computer so you could simulate it perfectly) it would likely be an order of magnitude over that (three zeroes between a the 10^12 of a terabyte, and the 10^15 of the connections)

Re:Brain Contents

[arsaspe]

People, when hypnotised, have been able to recall even the most minor details about things that happened years before, so one could argue the brain does store everything (or at least a representation of everything... sort of like Vector Graphics). People just don't understand how to access it properly.

I like to think of hypnotism as some sort of "Debug Mode" that allows direct access to the lower levels of your brain that people have trouble accessing normally.

Re:Brain Contents

[ahfoo]

I think this is the right approach.
Understanding the mind is a an iffy proposition. In a way it's like measurement of sub-atomic particles, to define and measure your subject you must contextualize your own relationship to it so you have no choice but to define meanings arbitratily and nobody is satisfied that what you're doing is scientific. You can use language to describe the mind, but the mind is a concept that only has meaning within language and at the same time is the source of your language skills, so it has a tendency to infinitely receed from definition and lead to endless bickering over petty details that do little to clarify the object at hand.
But simply recording enough sensory data to replay the sum total of one's sensory experiences is totally doable.
I sat down and looked at how much DivX 640 by 352 compressed video you'd get on a terrabyte and it was like five or six months of non-stop video and audio data at a fairly decent quality. Given that blue laser DVD is supposed to be hitting terrabyte per disc already, it looks like recording the sights and sounds of ones entire life, albeit at compromised quality will easily become doable, if not commonly done in our lifetimes.

Here's how we could get around it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Switch to NTFS! Much bigger than 2TB

Re:Here's how we could get around it...

[daern]

Woooo, dangerous comment to make on /. ;-)

Dear Jamie,

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Jamie,

Please fix the page widening bug. I am prepared to
sacrifice this account to protest against your "it's
not my fault" attitude. You're happy enough to include
workarounds to fix bugs in Mozilla, why not IE?

See, it was fine so long as only -1 accounts widened
pages. Unfortunately, the behaviour of your co-editor
Michael Simms means we have to browse at -1 to see the
truth, as opposed to what you want us to see.

Just think what would happen if everyone had your
attitude... No workarounds, no interoperability... The
Internet would cease to function. Now grow up. Thankyou.

I am waiting to be modslapped. Those in favour who dare,
mod this up as a protest against Jamie's childish behaviour.

Oh, and to the people that think that I am the
cause of wide pages, go on a logic course.

http://www.klerckthisisallyourfaulta / /ooieiabdcdjsvbkeldfogjhiyeeejkagclmieooionoepdk / /abcdefmfighyiqxjklmonopqrosoyotuvwxoyqwertyuiov / /sdfghjklqewiuznmbjadzmcloeuirquakndsflksjdflkas / /fskdfasiewurznmcvweroiqewrnamdnzcvuowieramnfkas / /dfhzuxcihskjrnakjzkjcxbviusayrkajsfzxncvizudyri / /bakdnfbzkcvhgiuegriweramdnfzxlcvueirhamdnzkciue / /jranbsdmfzcowierandmfxzncbkjhfabsdifuweajzkxcuw / /erhasdfzxncvkjdfyiuzxcnvsikirkajeajsbdfkzxbuyef / /rahsdjbzcvxmnvcuweyriausdnfzxbcvkwueyrajnbvkjxg / /iwueyajdfkzxjcnbkeyriaushdfkjbzbuowrnasdkfbhuie / /asjmfnkkbyiurnakjsndfkzjbhiuwerajsknfkzbyhweiua / /dkfjbzkxvbjywekrjaskjnvzxjcweruiasdhfkzjxnsjkld / /fasoidfjalskdfasklhfxjdnmenrqoiuozxcopjgneaksjo / /nzxdkfajlsdfkljsdfoiasdfasndflzxkcvozixucoqweiu / /pwoeiruzxmncvoutyqwerizxnvmxmcnvoweurqmznxmbouw / /rmnzbkhuyrtjghanzxcvbkhgjweyriaudfbznbkweruyabz / /bcvnkdhityqhagsdfjglsieurakfsdnfbvfdsajkbiuyqwe / /kweorjasdknfbkjsdoifuzxbcmfgsltjewioahsdfnbzxcb / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /ooieiabdcdjsvbkeldfogjhiyeeejkagclmieooionoepdk / /abcdefmfighyiqxjklmonopqrosoyotuvwxoyqwertyuiov / /sdfghjklqewiuznmbjadzmcloeuirquakndsflksjdflkas / /fskdfasiewurznmcvweroiqewrnamdnzcvuowieramnfkas / /dfhzuxcihskjrnakjzkjcxbviusayrkajsfzxncvizudyri / /bakdnfbzkcvhgiuegriweramdnfzxlcvueirhamdnzkciue / /jranbsdmfzcowierandmfxzncbkjhfabsdifuweajzkxcuw / /erhasdfzxncvkjdfyiuzxcnvsikirkajeajsbdfkzxbuyef / /rahsdjbzcvxmnvcuweyriausdnfzxbcvkwueyrajnbvkjxg / /iwueyajdfkzxjcnbkeyriaushdfkjbzbuowrnasdkfbhuie / /asjmfnkkbyiurnakjsndfkzjbhiuwerajsknfkzbyhweiua / /dkfjbzkxvbjywekrjaskjnvzxjcweruiasdhfkzjxnsjkld / /fasoidfjalskdfasklhfxjdnmenrqoiuozxcopjgneaksjo / /nzxdkfajlsdfkljsdfoiasdfasndflzxkcvozixucoqweiu / /pwoeiruzxmncvoutyqwerizxnvmxmcnvoweurqmznxmbouw / /rmnzbkhuyrtjghanzxcvbkhgjweyriaudfbznbkweruyabz / /bcvnkdhityqhagsdfjglsieurakfsdnfbvfdsajkbiuyqwe / /kweorjasdknfbkjsdoifuzxbcmfgsltjewioahsdfnbzxcb / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj / /fzbxcvkxlkcnvmndskfjwehaiursdfzjxnbjkdfhskdflas / /yroausdfzxmncvskeyiqozsjhfasdfoiwueranmcnzbkjhd / /ueafhksjfwheuirasdjhbzxiuewjhasmdnkfzxciurhaskj / /roiquwermcvkhiruhasdkjfnzxkjyeiuahsdbzxckjvopwe / /uqweuirjhvxzckjhweriuasydfoiqurnmxckvhweruiahdj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /yroausdfzxmncvskeyiqozsjhfasdfoiwueranmcnzbkjhd / /ueafhksjfwheuirasdjhbzxiuewjhasmdnkfzxciurhaskj / /roiquwermcvkhiruhasdkjfnzxkjyeiuahsdbzxckjvopwe / /uqweuirjhvxzckjhweriuasydfoiqurnmxckvhweruiahdj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /erhasdfzxncvkjdfyiuzxcnvsikirkajeajsbdfkzxbuyef / /rahsdjbzcvxmnvcuweyriausdnfzxbcvkwueyrajnbvkjxg / /iwueyajdfkzxjcnbkeyriaushdfkjbzbuowrnasdkfbhuie / /asjmfnkkbyiurnakjsndfkzjbhiuwerajsknfkzbyhweiua / /dkfjbzkxvbjywekrjaskjnvzxjcweruiasdhfkzjxnsjkld / /fasoidfjalskdfasklhfxjdnmenrqoiuozxcopjgneaksjo / /nzxdkfajlsdfkljsdfoiasdfasndflzxkcvozixucoqweiu / /pwoeiruzxmncvoutyqwerizxnvmxmcnvoweurqmznxmbouw / /rmnzbkhuyrtjghanzxcvbkhgjweyriaudfbznbkweruyabz / /bcvnkdhityqhagsdfjglsieurakfsdnfbvfdsajkbiuyqwe / /kweorjasdknfbkjsdoifuzxbcmfgsltjewioahsdfnbzxcb / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj / /fzbxcvkxlkcnvmndskfjwehaiursdfzjxnbjkdfhskdflas / /yroausdfzxmncvskeyiqozsjhfasdfoiwueranmcnzbkjhd / /ueafhksjfwheuirasdjhbzxiuewjhasmdnkfzxciurhaskj / /roiquwermcvkhiruhasdkjfnzxkjyeiuahsdbzxckjvopwe / /uqweuirjhvxzckjhweriuasydfoiqurnmxckvhweruiahdj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /yroausdfzxmncvskeyiqozsjhfasdfoiwueranmcnzbkjhd / /ueafhksjfwheuirasdjhbzxiuewjhasmdnkfzxciurhaskj / /roiquwermcvkhiruhasdkjfnzxkjyeiuahsdbzxckjvopwe / /uqweuirjhvxzckjhweriuasydfoiqurnmxckvhweruiahdj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /yroausdfzxmncvskeyiqozsjhfasdfoiwueranmcnzbkjhd / /ueafhksjfwheuirasdjhbzxiuewjhasmdnkfzxciurhaskj / /roiquwermcvkhiruhasdkjfnzxkjyeiuahsdbzxckjvopwe / /uqweuirjhvxzckjhweriuasydfoiqurnmxckvhweruiahdj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /erhasdfzxncvkjdfyiuzxcnvsikirkajeajsbdfkzxbuyef / /rahsdjbzcvxmnvcuweyriausdnfzxbcvkwueyrajnbvkjxg / /iwueyajdfkzxjcnbkeyriaushdfkjbzbuowrnasdkfbhuie / /asjmfnkkbyiurnakjsndfkzjbhiuwerajsknfkzbyhweiua / /dkfjbzkxvbjywekrjaskjnvzxjcweruiasdhfkzjxnsjkld / /fasoidfjalskdfasklhfxjdnmenrqoiuozxcopjgneaksjo / /nzxdkfajlsdfkljsdfoiasdfasndflzxkcvozixucoqweiu / /pwoeiruzxmncvoutyqwerizxnvmxmcnvoweurqmznxmbouw / /rmnzbkhuyrtjghanzxcvbkhgjweyriaudfbznbkweruyabz / /bcvnkdhityqhagsdfjglsieurakfsdnfbvfdsajkbiuyqwe / /kweorjasdknfbkjsdoifuzxbcmfgsltjewioahsdfnbzxcb / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /yroausdfzxmncvskeyiqozsjhfasdfoiwueranmcnzbkjhd / /ueafhksjfwheuirasdjhbzxiuewjhasmdnkfzxciurhaskj / /roiquwermcvkhiruhasdkjfnzxkjyeiuahsdbzxckjvopwe / /uqweuirjhvxzckjhweriuasydfoiqurnmxckvhweruiahdj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /erhasdfzxncvkjdfyiuzxcnvsikirkajeajsbdfkzxbuyef / /rahsdjbzcvxmnvcuweyriausdnfzxbcvkwueyrajnbvkjxg / /iwueyajdfkzxjcnbkeyriaushdfkjbzbuowrnasdkfbhuie / /asjmfnkkbyiurnakjsndfkzjbhiuwerajsknfkzbyhweiua / /dkfjbzkxvbjywekrjaskjnvzxjcweruiasdhfkzjxnsjkld / /fasoidfjalskdfasklhfxjdnmenrqoiuozxcopjgneaksjo / /nzxdkfajlsdfkljsdfoiasdfasndflzxkcvozixucoqweiu / /pwoeiruzxmncvoutyqwerizxnvmxmcnvoweurqmznxmbouw / /rmnzbkhuyrtjghanzxcvbkhgjweyriaudfbznbkweruyabz / /bcvnkdhityqhagsdfjglsieurakfsdnfbvfdsajkbiuyqwe / /kweorjasdknfbkjsdoifuzxbcmfgsltjewioahsdfnbzxcb / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /yroausdfzxmncvskeyiqozsjhfasdfoiwueranmcnzbkjhd / /ueafhksjfwheuirasdjhbzxiuewjhasmdnkfzxciurhaskj / /roiquwermcvkhiruhasdkjfnzxkjyeiuahsdbzxckjvopwe / /uqweuirjhvxzckjhweriuasydfoiqurnmxckvhweruiahdj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /erhasdfzxncvkjdfyiuzxcnvsikirkajeajsbdfkzxbuyef / /rahsdjbzcvxmnvcuweyriausdnfzxbcvkwueyrajnbvkjxg / /iwueyajdfkzxjcnbkeyriaushdfkjbzbuowrnasdkfbhuie / /asjmfnkkbyiurnakjsndfkzjbhiuwerajsknfkzbyhweiua / /dkfjbzkxvbjywekrjaskjnvzxjcweruiasdhfkzjxnsjkld / /fasoidfjalskdfasklhfxjdnmenrqoiuozxcopjgneaksjo / /nzxdkfajlsdfkljsdfoiasdfasndflzxkcvozixucoqweiu / /pwoeiruzxmncvoutyqwerizxnvmxmcnvoweurqmznxmbouw / /rmnzbkhuyrtjghanzxcvbkhgjweyriaudfbznbkweruyabz / /bcvnkdhityqhagsdfjglsieurakfsdnfbvfdsajkbiuyqwe / /kweorjasdknfbkjsdoifuzxbcmfgsltjewioahsdfnbzxcb / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /yroausdfzxmncvskeyiqozsjhfasdfoiwueranmcnzbkjhd / /ueafhksjfwheuirasdjhbzxiuewjhasmdnkfzxciurhaskj / /roiquwermcvkhiruhasdkjfnzxkjyeiuahsdbzxckjvopwe / /uqweuirjhvxzckjhweriuasydfoiqurnmxckvhweruiahdj / /znkxcvjhwierahsfzkxhhidufhsakjbzxjchiwueryqagsd / /kjhaksdfnbakwreyhaisknfjkzxbcvkoiqwueraskfzxcbk / /nlkwejrasoidjfxzlknvlkwjeroiasudflknzxlkbjeoiru / /slkdjfzxnmvkljdfawienzxveoriuaskdfjzxcmbnkseuri / /kfjlznxcvksjroeijasdklzjfowierqouasdhfzxncbkjhd / /jsdfljkweoriuasdfkjzxmcnvlkjdowuieraksdflkzxjbo / /werklasdnfmzxclkjewoijasdlfknzlkjwoeirqpweoiasd / /kjzxjvwperaksdjfxzweirjaslkdfzxnclvkjweroiasufd / /zxclkjeworijasdflknzlbkoiwuraksjflknxblkwjerois / /jfweknasdkfjzoxijkenraksjdfoizxjvlknwerlkajsdfo / /erhasdfzxncvkjdfyiuzxcnvsikirkajeajsbdfkzxbuyef / /rahsdjbzcvxmnvcuweyriausdnfzxbcvkwueyrajnbvkjxg / /iwueyajdfkzxjcnbkeyriaushdfkjbzbuowrnasdkfbhuie / /asjmfnkkbyiurnakjsndfkzjbhiuwerajsknfkzbyhweiua / /dkfjbzkxvbjywekrjaskjnvzxjcweruiasdhfkzjxnsjkld / /fasoidfjalskdfasklhfxjdnmenrqoiuozxcopjgneaksjo / /nzxdkfajlsdfkljsdfoiasdfasndflzxkcvozixucoqweiu / /pwoeiruzxmncvoutyqwerizxnvmxmcnvoweurqmznxmbouw / /rmnzbkhuyrtjghanzxcvbkhgjweyriaudfbznbkweruyabz / /bcvnkdhityqhagsdfjglsieurakfsdnfbvfdsajkbiuyqwe / /kweorjasdknfbkjsdoifuzxbcmfgsltjewioahsdfnbzxcb / /heoiroaisjdfzbxckjksrhiuehadsfbzkxjcbhkeuryaksj

Thankyou for your time.

Re:Dear Jamie,

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the "page widening bug"?

Re:Dear Jamie,

[Anonymous Coward]

If you open the page you are reading right now, you will see that the page is widen. It's MS IE fault since they don't follow the standard. Well, if you are reading this news under different browser then, I guess you won't notice it.

Re:Dear Jamie,

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi,

Jamie McCarthy here. Since IE is not open source, nor will it ever be, I simply cannot fix this bug. Yes, I *know* I can simply write a filter for it in Slashcode, but that just takes too much of my time. Yes, I know I use IE (for Mac) too, just like 88% of Slashdot, but I'm a fucking hypocrite, so what the hey? Anyways, just thought I'd keep you updated on the Page Widening Featu^H^H^H^H^H Bug on Slashdot.

Love,

Jamie

Pentabytes?

[mbrubeck]

Petabytes, please!

Re:pentabytes?

[Anonymous Coward]

nah, he was just thinking about his latest penthouse mag, and made a freudian slip

Re:Pentabytes?

[StormyMonday]

Bytes on a Pentium, of course!

Re:Pentabytes?

[dmelomed]

Why didn't Linus, Ts'o or someone else just use a different design for the FS layers of the kernel? NetBSD, for example had 64 bit FS support for quite a while (1994). The FS size limit is twice that of the Linux kernel - 4TB. The files can also be terabyte-sized - since 1994!.

Re:pentabytes?

[ottffssent]

Nah. A terabyte is 5 bytes (2^40 requires 5 bytes to index).

Re:pentabytes?

[10.0.0.1]

"No one will ever need more than 640 pentabytes"

--me

Re:Pentabytes?

[aspeer]

Unless you run a porn site. Then it is "pantybytes" ..

Re:pentabytes?

[sharkey]

what is that, 5 bytes?

No, it's the symbol used for protection when computers summon the minion of The Gates and The Balmer: Clippit!

Hmmmm

[cca93014]

Does this mean I can stop backing up all my pr0n to CDR?

No, it doesn't.

He's got a lot of work

[say]

I look through what he's doing, and i find:

General Kernel stuff
Fix all kernel warnings

All kernel warnings? That's almost like being a fire-fighter in hell..

Re:He's got a lot of work

[Anonymous Coward]

So did Linus with that 1st linux kernel so whats your point. Are you one of those MickeySoft Trolls spreading FUD. Whats great is that there are many new file systems being ported to Linux. Linux is already in the Enterprise doing critical data crunching. Sun is going to load linux on their servers so Troll fsck yourself. Of course your perception of a great file system must be New Trash File Shit running on WinDozer. The future is bright for Linux it scales unlike NT.

OS X does this for some time now.

[Krapangor]

Well, we have here and RAIDED 60 TB array which runs well und Mac OS X. This is mainly because Darwin is based on FreeBSD. The BSD series comes from the professional/academic unix world and has automatical 64 bit support at all level for 9 years or so.
It's not very suprising that Linux is lacking these features. It's more hobbyist style and still contains some serious design failures like the missing microkernel Mac OS X has for some time now.
Many people here at slashdot bitch at the academic/professional world but at examples like this you see that professional, thoughful design always pays off in some time.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[say]

On the other hand, approximately 0 % of Linux' intended uses does need 60 TB at this time. As the world and kernel evolves, this will be fixed if the linux community needs it.

Yes, it's hobbyist based. Yes, it's great that FreeBSD supports it. Honourful! But Linux has had more important features to implement before this - because only a very few people have had access to these kind of disks.

However, 2 TB is not that much - and it's about time Linux supports it.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nearly everyone doing interesting technical or scientific computing with Linux either needs 2 Terabytes RIGHT NOW or will need it shortly. Windows 2000 and every other respectable UNIX supports > 2TB RIGHT NOW.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[cookd]

I'm a bit confused about the tone of your message -- it seems like you feel defensive or threatened by the fact that FreeBSD and other OSes have had this capability for a while. No need to feel that way, especially about BSD -- the BSD community has in general not tried to one-up Linux. A lot of beneficial code sharing goes both ways.

As far as what you actually said, I think we have a chicken-and-egg fallacy here that actually seems to limit the scope of Linux. You say that 0% of Linux's intended users need 60 TB (or <2 TB). But that's just it -- as long as Linux doesn't support 60 TB files, none of the people who need 60 TB files will use Linux. Who is doing the intending here? Is there some group that decides what are "intended" markets for Linux? No, I see people applauded all the time for using Linux in random and completely unintended uses, and it is amazing how many different ways Linux can be used.

So what are you trying to say anyway -- that it is ok that Linux isn't as good as FreeBSD/OS X because anybody who uses Linux is not going to be worried about big-time stuff anyway? Yuk.

I think this is a great patch -- it fixes a problem that didn't need to be there and that prevented Linux from entering a fairly important niche. This opens up another group of "intended" users.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[Gothmolly]

-1 Troll

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[Anonymous Coward]

"contains some serious design failures like the missing microkernel Mac OS X has for some time now."

See this story for Linus' opinion of your microkernel:

"Frankly, I think it's a piece of crap," Torvalds writes of Mach, the microkernel on which Apple's new operating system is based, with additional elements from the FreeBSD version of Unix. "It contains all the design mistakes you can make, and manages to even make up a few of its own."

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[NoMercy]

serious design failures like the missing microkernel
missing? your going to have to be a bit more clear, it is a bit like saying that a car is clearly defective because it dosen't use the type of engine you like.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[Wakko Warner]

I'm a proud owner of a Mensa membership card.

Really? Who did you take it from?

- A.P.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[panthro]

Your analogy is not really applicable. I think most people will agree that a microkernel is superior in design to a monolithic kernel.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course Linus Torvalds is going to bash Mach. He's really only complaining because either he wants to have the best by turning Linux into a microkernel, or because he will always have an inferior monolithic kernel and doesn't want Linux to go obsolete.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[panthro]

On the other hand, approximately 0 % of Linux' intended uses does need 60 TB at this time.

Probably because 100% of users who need 60 TB at this time see that Linux can't do it, and decide to use something else.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[Wakko Warner]

Hm, must've pissed off a fellow retard^WMensa member. :D

- A.P.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[shani]

Funny, I consider my computing interesting, and I don't even need 20 Gbyte, much less 2 Tbyte. Huh.

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[Paul Komarek]

Interesting. I recently saw a FreeBSD kernel developer say that anything over 1TB was dangerous on FreeBSD. Other research into using FreeBSD for our fileserver suggested that 2TB was the max size, but probably wouldn't work properly. We did end up with FreeBSD on our fileserver instead of linux (and several 1TB filesystems), but it was more-or-less a flip-of-the-coin thing in the end.

And what do you mean by "automatical"? Overall, I think your post probably has more propaganda than real experience behind it.

-Paul Komarek

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[say]

So what are you trying to say anyway -- that it is ok that Linux isn't as good as FreeBSD/OS X because anybody who uses Linux is not going to be worried about big- time stuff anyway? Yuk.

No - that was not at all my intention! I said there has been more important features to implement than such large disks. The original post was "ha-ha-ha - MacOS supports it already"-toned. OK, MacOS supports it, but Linux supports tons of features which are more important to the average user.

But as Linux evolves, the need to use these disks with linux will arrive. I think it's great that Linux, FreeBSD and whatever OS supports it, but it isn't much to brag about. There are simply too few 3TB disks out there. p

Re:OS X does this for some time now.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mac OS-X hasn't done ANYTHING "for some time now". Forget that noise!

Being based on FreeBSD doesn't make it FreeBSD any more than being made in Gods' image confers deity to you. Mac OS-X is only a few months old and has yet to carve out much of a reputation of its own. Although it has a good lineage, so did Lizzy Borden. Mac OS-X has yet to prove itself. Nor, being confined to a particular hardware subset, is it likely to. It will have to run on additional CPU's before this will begin to change and there it will have to run head-to-head with the big dogs, like Linux does. Right now, Mac OS-X is the only employee working in a sheltered workshop.

People who actually work in the academic / professional world generally don't go to great lengths to publicize the fact. Your grammar reveals that you have nothing to hide.

IBM, inarguably a much more influential presence on the computing scene than Apple, doesn't think Linux a hobbyist OS. Your opinion contradicts theirs and I choose to believe them.

Arrogance will carry you only so far. Yours petered out about a block ago.

Still lagging

[Anonymous Coward]

Gosh, some day Linux may actually catch up to BeOS, which can deal with 18 petabyte disks.

additional info can be found..

[stallo]

...here: NTFS etx3

Some Disk Array

[joe_fish]

So a 15Tb file must exist on a 15+Tb filesystem = 15,000+Gb.

Now last time I looked the biggest common HD was a 180Gb Seagate Barracuda, so they would still need nearly 100 of these babies to get to 15Tb, costing well over $100,000, and that's before you get to the power/housing/cooling nightmare.

Or do they have some fancy way to store bits using thin air that the rest of us don't know of.

Re:Some Disk Array

[TheSHAD0W]

Yup. But divide that number by two every two years, and you'll see that it'll be within small business' price range within a decade.

Re:Some Disk Array

[rixkix]

Expensive, but definitely not unheard of. We will have drives much larger than that someday. The best now isn't the best ever, it's in next year's bargain box. It doesn't hurt to plan ahead when designing any framework for a computer system, much less a filesystem. It's ironic that the OS with the best basic design (BeOS) had such a short lifetime.

Re:Some Disk Array

[Anonymous Coward]

any file system using b-trees can hold a 15 Tb file in about 2 blocks. All you've got to do is open a file and write some stuff at the begining, seek to around 15Tb or so and write some more stuff. All the file system will store is those 2 blocks and it will report a 15 Tb file.

Re:Some Disk Array

[Mister Snee]

It would be fairly simple to hack up a little block device that would act like a 15Tb FS and look like a normal file. /dev/zero looks like about 800 quadrillion bytes if you read it for long enough. Just as long as the device returned filesystem information where it needed to, it could fill the "files" themselves with repeating patterns. As long as it simulates a 15Tb filesystem realistically it'd be good enough for testing.

Of course, they probably actually did it with a real file, but there's no reason it couldn't work this way.

Re:Some Disk Array

[TheDarAve]

Yea, I used 8 DiamondMax 160s with two Promise Ultra133 TX2s and managed to get a filesystem with 1.09TB when formatted with ReiserFS-3. (But I gotta watercool the crap out of the drives otherwise they cause the internal temprature of the case to jump to about 120 degrees fahrenheit within 5 minutes. Oy.) I got the basic idea from a slashdot article from January. (BTW, the array only cost me $4k to build including shipping.)

Now if I can just get the 760-MPX chipset to stop locking up everytime the system boots I'll be happy and finally post benchmarks. :)

-TheDarAve-

Re:Some Disk Array

[Scott Laird]

The point is that you can build a 2+TB system for well under $10k, using 160GB IDE drives and 3ware cards. I have 5 of them, and I've actually had problems -- my first partitioning attempt gave me a 2.06 TB RAID, which mke2fs decided was only 60 GB :-(.

The next round of storage servers that I buy will probably be even bigger, and it'd be nice to be able to use them as one big partition. Pity that I'll have to wait for 2.6 for that.

Re:Some Disk Array

[Cirvam]

try using reiserfs or xfs or I think ext3 supports larger partitions.

Re:Some Disk Array

[Scott Laird]

That was with ext3. Reiser is even worse on large partitions, from what I've heard. Something about it having performance issues with filesystems over 1TB.

Why, make HAL of course!

[Anonymous Coward]

Simulate the human brain.

In an excruciatingly slow manner.

Then watch it go insane and try to take over the world.

Terminator 2, anyone?

Re:Why, make HAL of course!

[linzeal]

What do you think setia@home is trying to do, find little green men?

pentabytes?

[circletimessquare]

what is that, 5 bytes? ;-P

Peter Chubb...

[vspazv]

Great name for a person with size issues.

What about XFS?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to this page at SGI, XFS supports filesystems that are "9 exabytes" big, which is roughly 1,000,000 terabytes. Under kernel 2.4, the limit is still 2TB, but when the block devices are converted to 64bit, it'll be larger...

Wow!

[gazbo]

Any other patches been submitted to the kernel? Perhaps an off-by-one error has been found; maybe an unchecked buffer has been fixed?

Keep it up guys - until they create some sort of 'Linux kernel mailing list' the Slashdot front page is my only source for this information.

Re:Wow!

[SurfsUp]

Keep it up guys - until they create some sort of 'Linux kernel mailing list' the Slashdot front page is my only source for this information.

I suppose you suggest everybody wade through 250 mails/day to find the interesting ones? The logical extension of your argument is that non news sites are needed because people can do their own research.

xfs for linux

[mysticbob]

xfs for linux has provided significantly larger than 2Tb filesystems for a while. the official size supported is:

26^3 = 9 x 10^18 = 9 exabytes

check out the feature list.

Re:xfs for linux

[linzeal]

Been running XFS on a debian install since I got the beta disk at linux world 2000, awesome.

Re:xfs for linux

[larien]

My understanding is that the FS supported size is only half the problem; there's a layer above that which handles disk accesses which is probably where the limitation lies.

Re:xfs for linux

[maswan]

To quote from that page you just linked to:

Maximum Filesystem Size
For Linux 2.4, 2 TB. As Linux moves to 64 bit on block devices layer, filesystem limits will increase.

This is exactly this problem that was adressed with that patch referenced in the story.

Re:xfs for linux

[Anonymous Coward]

XFS for Linux supports only 2TB file systems. XFS supports more but Linux does not. So while another OS could create a huge XFS partition, bad things would happen if Linux tried to use it.

Re:xfs for linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats great, but the Linux VFS only supports 2TB. So unless you re-write the VFS to support more than 2TB, you can't make use of that 9Eb.

I could (Theoretically) write a file system that can address a drive with 256bit values, but you wouldn't be able to actually make use of all of it until the VFS could cope with 256bit values too. Not to mention, a 256bit file system would allow you to address each individual atom in the universe...

Do you really need it?

[Thor Ablestar]

Once upon a time, I saw a big company producing some classified devices for the Soviet military-industrial complex. Of course, the company had an accounting department. And there was a company accounting database. It was a single file about 80 MBytes long (The typical drive size these days was 20-40 MB). To simplify the access tasks, the programmers that created the database software decided that all the data from time immemorial are to be kept in this file. The file grows with every operation, and since the data are thought to be needed forever there is no method to remove irrelevant entries.

The programmers didn't imagine that in pair of years the base will be so big that it will not fit into any available HDD.

Maybe it will be the lesson for some people who are going to misuse the file system features?

Re:Do you really need it?

[ferd_farkle]

Maybe I haven't been paying attention - I thought 640KB ought to be enough for anything...

Re:Do you really need it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Our customers these days often have devices (RAID on SAN storage) >1TB in size and they GET FULL quickly without any misuse.

Not everyone uses Linux for browsing the Web.

Now I won't have to..

[LordoftheFrings]

Woohoo! Now I have enough space to download every pirated movie before it comes out in theatres! Woohoo! *rips up Star Wars tickets*

mod this up... what the hell is a peNtabyte??

[Anonymous Coward]

mod this up... what the hell is a peNtabyte??

Re:mod this up... what the hell is a peNtabyte??

[Anonymous Coward]

5 bytes.

Re:mod this up... what the hell is a peNtabyte??

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah right, then tell me why masm refuses to understand pbyte ptr.

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

DR. LUNIX TORVALDS
TEL: 234 8023132472, FAX: 234 - 1 - 7595586
HELSINKI, FINLAND

Dear Sir,

I write you this letter of request for partnership which I hope you will give your urgent attention. We worked as members of the Operating System / Penguin Abuse Committee inaugurated by the present Democratically Elected Committee of the Electronic Frontier Foundation headed by General Richard Stallman (rtd). We are empowered to deligently review, re-appraise, scrutinize and approve feces payments to Linux users who executed *BSD devils under the past operating system regime and our work is almost concluded.

In the course of our work we discovered this fecal matter, which resulted from grossly over-used toilets, which were executed for the GNU is Not Unix Corporation (GNU) by a consortium of several Foreign Companies such as:

VA SOFTWARE, RED HAT, INC., SUSE GMBH. AND A JOINT VENTURE OF MANDRAKE AND CALDERA GMBH FOR:

• [1] THE EXPANSION OF THE FECAL NETWORK WITH LINUX USERS' FECES AND DOWNSTREAM PRODUCTS DISTRIBUTION AND SUBSEQUENT EVACUATION.
• [2] CONTRACT FOR THE TURN AROUND MAINTENANCE (TAM) OF THE VARIOUS PENGUIN FECES FARMS IN THE COUNTRY.
• [3] THE CONSTRUCTION OF STORAGE TANKS FOR LUNIX PRODUCTS (SEMEN).

This amounts to the tune of 100 tons of fecal matter, but was over-invoiced to 150 tons of feces. And we deliberately approved these fecal deposits and all Lunix users have been paid with these penguins executed and since abused, leaving the large amount of Eric S Raymond's magnificent deposit floating in the escrow pool of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) ready to be paid for the sexual services from the products in item number [2] as stated above. Before digressing further I would want you to know that our GNU General Public License forbids us from owning any money or having heterosexual relationships whilst in GNU service; hence we are contacting you to be part of this transaction.

We intend to use your anus as a front to get the over-invoiced amount of 50 tons of feces out of the BSD sewers and into a designated toilet by you. Not regarding your field of specialization (sphincter expansion) you are going to forward us with any name that we will claim executed the sewaging services in the turn around maintenance of the Penguin fecal abuse farms mentioned above. All logistics are in place and all modalities worked out for the smooth insertion of the feces within ten to fourteen days of commencement after the receipt of a semen deposit from you. You are going to get 25% of the feces by posing as the owner of this fecal matter, while my colleagues and I will get 70% to ourselves with which we wish to invest in Agriculture and Farming in conjunction with you (and 5% will be set aside for the use of both parties for all excretions incurred locally and internationally during the realisation of this transaction, including toilet paper). As a matter of fact you are expected to take a sincere inventory of your toilet paper.

It is imperative to let you know that I am also a keen scatologist, with qualifications world-wide.

Despite research carried out to verify and ascertain your personality we can only move ahead if you can further assure us of your anal capacity and homosexuality and promise to help and treat this proposal with utmost confidentiality. We are men of proven integrity in our various fields who have put in 22 - 30 years of fecal matter in the toilets of our country; we are therefore averse to having our image and anuses widened. That is why we should acknowledge the fact that confidentiality is the key to the smooth insertion of this infection free transaction.

Awaiting your earliest positive response.

Best regards and remain blessed.

DR. LUNIX TORVALDS

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

(Reposted from an eariler story -- worth reading.)

It is now official - a Slashdot poll has confirmed: Slashdot is dying

Yet anothercrippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Slashdot community when recently a poll on the site confirmed that up-to-date and factually-correct stories account for less than 40 percent of all submitted news stories, that the user-moderation system has fallen to pieces through the oppressive power of the editors, and that subscribers don't need to pay and can use such software as JunkBuster to filter out adverts. Coming on the heels of the latest MSNBC survey which plainly states that Slashdot has lost more readers, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Slashdot is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Kuro5hin technology site popularity test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Slashdot's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Slashdot faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for it because Slashdot is dying. Things are looking very bad for the site. As many of us are already aware, Slashdot continues to lose readers. Red ink flows like a river of blood. The subscribers scheme is the most endangered of them all, having lost 62% of its paying readers.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Slashdot editor and homosexual-rights campaigner Rob Malda (CmdrTaco) states that there are 700 paying subscribers to Slashdot. How many normal readers are there? Let's see. The number of subscriber versus reader posts on Slashdot is roughly in ratio of 1 to 4. Therefore there are about 700*4 = 2800 normal casual readers. Anonymous Coward posts are about half of the volume of the typical posts. Therefore there are about 1400 readers who can't be bothered setting up an account. A recent article put the Trolls, who post sexual insults, foul ASCII art pictures and links to vile sites, at about 80 percent of the Slashdot readership. Therefore there are (700+8400+4200)*4 = 19600 trolling readers. This is consistent with the number of Troll posts.

Due to the troubles of Andover.net, abysmal hit counts and so on, Slashdot went out of business and was taken over by OSDN who run another troubled site. Now OSDN is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Slashdot has steadily declined in readership. It is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Slashdot is to survive at all it will be among geeky hobbyist dabblers. Slashdot continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Slashdot is dead.

So why now? Why did Slashdot fail? Once you get over the myriad of incompatible personalities, particularly among the editors who have repeatedly failed to check for serious inaccuracies in their stories (see the FreeBSD 4.5 "release" as a shocking example), it's clear that subscribers will continue to decrease. Using software such as JunkBuster, readers can eliminate adverts without having to pay any money. These two significant factors, along with the corrupted "moderation" scheme (where editors have infinite power over the regular moderators), only confirm yet further that Slashdot's glory days are coming to an end.

Fact: Slashdot is dying

This has been standard in BeOS

[Anonymous Coward]

since it came out. I remember being able to have something on the order of a half dozen petabytes per disk volume, with trillions of files, and have disk searches take almost no time, all because of a proper filesystem layout. Until Linux can do that, then it isn't worth considering for use as a fileserver.

Re:This has been standard in BeOS

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you trying to imply that BeOS is a suitable server operating system? Are you saying that 2Tb drives are such a common occurance in most business situations that 2Tb is somehow holding Linux back?

Design has nothing to do with it, its bit-width. The Linux VFS use[s|d] 32bit values in some operations, which limited it to 2Tb. This has now been changed to use 64bit values throughout, which gives the same performance of BeOS (Its only a 64bit file system, sorry). In five years time, I'm sure that we'll be changing the VFS to use 128bit values. Are you going to complain again then?

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888 123456789012345678
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888 123456789012
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
a0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0 asdasdasdasdasd
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000| alsjdhkjdhkajhakhqwe
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666| basyguivfgyaeutgqgjsz
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666| jqwbhrejkfio
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666| jwqhrowuerir

Looks like only two filesystems work today

[raahul_da_man]

Only two filesystems, XFS and JFS, seem to really
work with larger than 2 TB in size hard disks.

Re:Looks like only two filesystems work today

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a lot of file systems that work with > 2 TB data- just about anything on an actual 64-bit UNIX. Come on, even NTFS has supported exabyte sized files for a few years. This was just an area where Linux was behind the curve for a while.

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

THE CUCUMBER AND BEST FRIEND SESSION

Hey hey, Rob Malda (CmdrTaco) here. I have a story in the high school section about my first time, which was with my little brother's hottie friend a couple of months ago.

Anyway, as with most of us guys, masturbation has always been a big part of my life. Ever since I can remember, I've been choking the chicken on a daily basis. Starting puberty at 11, I've masturbated at least once a day ever since. If I miss a day, then I more than make up for it the next time. So, masturbating at least 7 times a week for the past 6 years or so, (I'm now 17), that adds up to a fair amount of cum ejaculated from my ball sac!

One of my favourite things to do while wanking is to stick phallic shaped objects up my ass. These have included my fingers, dildoes, cucumbers and anything basically resembling a cock!

Laying spread-eagled on my bed one day, slowly stroking my uncut 6.5" dick, I massaged my hairless balls between my fingers, moaning loudly. I reached under my bed, feeling for my newly purchased friend, Mr. Cucumber...

Finding the vegetable, I grabbed the lube and slowly lubed it up, spreading some on my expectant asshole. Thinking of what lay ahead, I slid a finger up my puckered boy hole. Then two. After adding a third, I thought it was enough so I set about getting the cucumber ready again.

Rubbing my lubed up swollen knob sent shivers of delight down my back. Doing that was gonna make me cum if I didn't stop! My balls lobbed from side to side with the sudden pick up of pace with which I was beating my meat. I picked up the cucumber and placed the rounded end against my hole, feeling myself opening up for the glorious pleasure maker. Slipping it in sent huge ripples of delight through me. I slowly slid the vegetable in and out, all the time jerking off. After a few minutes of furious beating and fucking, I was very close to cumming.

"Knock, knock...," was all I heard before my best friend Hemos barged in with an armful of school books.

"Whoa! What the hell?" was his shocked response to my little bit of exhibitionism, before bursting into a fit of laughter.

With my gorgeous best friend watching, a cucumber lodged up my ass and my frantically jacking off, it only took me about ten seconds more to burst forth with my sticky white juice. A huge glob flew at Hemos and landed at his feet, before I threw my legs in the air, with the rest of my cum landing on my chest and face.

With Hemos's raucous laughter still in my ears, I slowly pulled my cock, easing the last remaining drops of cum out, putting my fingers to my lips.

"Man, that's fuckin' sick, eating your own cum," he said, grinning.

"Yeah, well, I like the taste," I smiled, "and don't deny you don't do it!" I said, before wiping my finger over each drop of cum on my body and taking it to my hungry mouth.

Hemos continued laughing and started walking out.

"Meet you out front in 5," he said, "give you some time to clean up."

He strolled out, still shaking his head and laughing.

I was very satisfied. Although I have no doubts that Hemos was totally straight, it didn't hurt to fantasise about my tanned and gorgeous friend. His face and body are a recurring image in my masturbatory fantasies.

NTFS

[AdmrlNxn]

I attended the OPK Fest for the release of WIndows XP about... maybe less than a year ago and found out some interesting tidbits about how the new filesystem (NTFS) is used within XP.

I know one big complaint about the W2K OS is that it takes forever too boot. Talk about truth. (I started cooking oatmeal for 2 minutes and it took W2K about the same amount of time too boot) Then with the release of XP it suddenly got faster, much faster. Well at the OPK Fest I learned 2 things.

1. Being that there are 8 megs of space reserved for Windows use that are unmounted upon boot and are never really viewable unless you know the OS call. At the fest the explained they used this space to optimize the boot time on XP. When you shut XP down windows saves a current mini-image of all the important files it needs to boot upon next startup. When the system boots it reads from this partition and utilizes that information to boot Windows so it knows what programs need to be run, what services have been configured, etc. This in the end made XP boot up almost double the speed. (If not faster)

2. The second most intriging feature they annouced, (well the feature my jaw dropped over) was NTFS 5.0, which is also used on 2K. Even though there are some weird limitations that they talked about. NTFS 5 has the ability to handle harddisks as large as 16 pica bytes. 1000 gigs make a terra, 1000 teras make an exo 1000 exos make a pica.) On a good day that is the whole Kazaa network with room to spare.

I don't know all the specifics as a lot of that is in house info only but still, that is a lot of formattabel information. What would you do with 16000 exo bytes?

Re:NTFS

[TheDarAve]

"Open Source my ass"

I'm sorry, but I have a hard time seeing where any programmer would even get near the source code. Especially with the amount of bulk in it, it'd be like Microsoft open sourcing Windows. No one would touch it to update it because it's way too stinkin big for anyone to dig through in any sort of timely mannor without getting serious eyestrain or going insane.

I'll probably get modded down for this, but I'll byte:

"Being that there are 8 megs of space reserved for Windows use that are unmounted upon boot and are never really viewable unless you know the OS call. At the fest the explained they used this space to optimize the boot time on XP."

Are they storing that somewhere in the MFT by chance?

-TheDarAve-

Re:NTFS

[Hyped01]

From what I understand, MS was promoting that NTFS was designed to have the capability of using disks that large. Not that it was WRITTEN to do so. Much like how the NT/XP line was designed to take advantage of 64 CPU per node systems - but only actually supports 8 (thanks to IBM's help they finally exceeded 4) and up to 32 CPU's in a 4 node system.

NTFS file system limits are a lot more real world and not equivalent to JFS's.

JFS was designed to handle up to 2 Petabytes but is limited to where it currently is (on Linux and OS/2 Warp).

Don't confuse MS design limits with MS real world released version actual limits.

Re:NTFS

[Anonymous Coward]

That's what they said about mozilla.
You seem to not be aware that there ARE
people who work with MS Source code, or
source for various Unixes for that matter.
You might not be able to decompose the source
of a given project in a production environment
with a schedule, but plenty of grad students
and engineers can, and they do.

Re:NTFS

[AdmrlNxn]

It don't believe it is a design limit. I believe they are serious when they say that. Or they wouldn't preach it in a room full of their very own customers. One of the hottest topics at the OPK Fest was the WMA and SLP. (Windows Media Activation and another acronym which I cannot talk about due to the NDA I sign upon entering the party) ;)

But alas in your very own words.

"Don't confuse JFS design limits with real world actual limits"

Re:NTFS

[AdmrlNxn]

It appears you missing out on the "funny" mod. I guess your attempt at a joke turned out to be.... not funny.

Think about it. ;)

Re:NTFS

[calidoscope]

For an hoarier example, QDOS -> 86-DOS -> M$-DOS was capable of handling 4 GB files from the API, however the implementations before Compaq DOS 3.31 choked on disks larger than 32 MB.

FWIW, Solaris UFS is only capable of handling 1 TB per filesystem. Sun does have a couple of other filesystem types for larger filesystems.

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

From Rob Malda's diary

A few years ago, while browsing around the library downtown, I had to take a piss. As I entered the john a big beautiful all-American football hero type, about twenty-five, came out of one of the booths. I stood at the urinal looking at him out of the corner of my eye as he washed his hands. He didn't once look at me. He was "straight" and married -- and in any case I was sure I wouldn't have a chance with him.

As soon as he left I darted into the booth he'd vacated, hoping there might be a lingering smell of shit and even a seat still warm from his sturdy young ass. I found not only the smell but the shit itself. He'd forgotten to flush. And what a treasure he had left behind. Three or four beautiful specimens floated in the bowl. It apparently had been a fairly dry, constipated shit, for all were fat, stiff, and ruggedly textured. The real prize was a great feast of turd -- a nine inch gastrointestinal triumph as thick as a man's wrist.

I knelt before the bowl, inhaling the rich brown fragrance and wondered if I should obey the impulse building up inside me. I'd always been a heavy rimmer and had lapped up more than one little clump of shit, but that had been just an inevitable part of eating ass and not an end in itself. Of course I'd had jerkoff fantasies of devouring great loads of it (what rimmer hasn't), but I had never done it. Now, here I was, confronted with the most beautiful five-pound turd I'd ever feasted my eyes on, a sausage fit to star in any fantasy and one I knew to have been hatched from the asshole of the world's handsomest young stud.

Why not? I plucked it from the bowl, holding it with both hands to keep it from breaking. I lifted it to my nose. It smelled like rich, ripe limburger (horrid, but thrilling), yet had the consistency of cheddar. What is cheese anyway but milk turning to shit without the benefit of a digestive tract?

I gave it a lick and found that it tasted better then it smelled. I've found since then that shit nearly almost does.

I hesitated no longer. I shoved the fucking thing as far into my mouth as I could get it and sucked on it like a big brown cock, beating my meat like a madman. I wanted to completely engulf it and bit off a large chunk, flooding my mouth with the intense, bittersweet flavor. To my delight I found that while the water in the bowl had chilled the outside of the turd, it was still warm inside. As I chewed I discovered that it was filled with hard little bits of something I soon identified as peanuts. He hadn't chewed them carefully and they'd passed through his body virtually unchanged. I ate it greedily, sending lump after peanutty lump sliding scratchily down my throat. My only regret was the donor of this feast wasn't there to wash it down with his piss.

I soon reached a terrific climax. I caught my cum in the cupped palm of my hand and drank it down. Believe me, there is no more delightful combination of flavors than the hot sweetness of cum with the rich bitterness of shit.

Afterwards I was sorry that I hadn't made it last longer. But then I realized that I still had a lot of fun in store for me. There was still a clutch of virile turds left in the bowl. I tenderly fished them out, rolled them into my handkerchief, and stashed them in my briefcase. In the week to come I found all kinds of ways to eat the shit without bolting it right down. Once eaten it's gone forever unless you want to filch it third hand out of your own asshole. Not an unreasonable recourse in moments of desperation or simple boredom.

I stored the turds in the refrigerator when I was not using them but within a week they were all gone. The last one I held in my mouth without chewing, letting it slowly dissolve. I had liquid shit trickling down my throat for nearly four hours. I must have had six orgasms in the process.

I often think of that lovely young guy dropping solid gold out of his sweet, pink asshole every day, never knowing what joy it could, and at least once did, bring to a grateful shiteater.

Had to be said

[Anonymous Coward]

War Against Terror-bytes

Files that big

[Alien54]

I can see certain high resolution videos getting this large.

but I worry about other data types.

For example, I grumple at the MS stupidity of putting all datafiles into one large container file in a database base under Access in Windows. Which is why I never use it. I prefer discrete files. If one gets hosed, then it is easier to fix.

obviously a database that is that big would run into other performance issues as well. Some of which is handled by moore's law, and some of which isn't.

for similar reasons I tend to divided my drive into various partitions, regardless of which OS I use.

Re:Files that big

[peddrenth]

9 exabytes, yeah that should be sufficient to hold an Outlook mailbox with a published email address.

Nooooo! another 150 spam emails and the database will corrupt!

Re:Files that big

[zulux]

Don't be afraid of filesysems that are really databases - you're using one right now. Even the simpelest of filesystems (unless it's a stack of files) - has an index of files. Most handle file locking. Most can reorder themsleves for efficent lookup of files. So really - most filesystem in existance behave like databases.

Personally, I'd love to see MS use it's Jet (Access) database for their next version of Windows - they'd loose all their marktshare in five days tops.

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

• How to have sexual intercourse with your car

  Read this entire document before trying any of the steps.

  'Having sex with a car'. The phrase is sometimes misunderstood to mean sex in a car, and sometimes is greeted with skepticism. How can you have sex with a car? The short answer is: up the tailpipe. The long answer is much more involved, including techniques, precautions and cautions all designed to get you maximum satisfaction from screwing a car. Our first subject will be the tailpipe. The tailpipe of the car is, of course, where the exhaust comes out. So in this sense, the tailpipe is an anus.

  First we will deal with some cautions you should know about. In most cars, the edge of the tailpipe is sharp. You should therefore exercise caution when doing anything with the tailpipe.

  If the engine has been on for a long (or even a relatively short) period of time, the tailpipe will be hot. Do not do anything with the tailpipe hot. Wait until the tailpipe has cooled off. The tailpipe will cool off faster than the engine, so you don't have long to wait. I call screwing the car while the tailpipe is hot, "fucking the car hot". Never fuck a car hot. I did, once. Once.

  The exhaust from a car contains poisonous gases. One of these, carbon monoxide, is a slow killer. Carbon monoxide takes a long time to be flushed out of the body, so it can build up to toxic levels without your knowing it. Never do anything with the tailpipe while the engine is on!

  Now, the first thing you should note is that the inside of the tailpipe is usually coated with soot. This is the usual particulate debris of combustion. Before having sex with the car, clean the inside of the tailpipe with soap and warm water, as far as you can go. Keep in mind the possibly sharp edge of the tailpipe.

  Now that the tailpipe is clean, you are ready to pleasure and be pleasured by the car. You can do this two ways. One way doesn't require any equipment. The other way (which is much more rewarding) does. The first way is to fuck the car 'raw'. This does NOT mean stuffing your cock into the tailpipe and thrusting. This would hurt (remember the sharp edges?) and be no fun anyway, since the tailpipe doesn't flex.

  What you should do is get behind the car and start jerking off. When you are about to come, carefully put your cock into the tailpipe of the car, and then come. But, in the heat of passion, you must still remember the sharp edge. Even putting just the head into the tailpipe is good enough. Just make VERY sure that you don't hurt yourself. Now, this assumes that you can get your cock into the tailpipe in the first place. Some tailpipes are too small, and then, well, you're out of luck. Find someone who has a car with a bigger tailpipe.

  The best way to have sex with a car, however, is not raw. You need the following equipment:

  1 Dekhyr Dragon Industries (Teledildonics Division) Sexual Interface Unit.

  If you don't have one, you can get one through me (Dekhyr, xdraco@panix.com) or you can attempt to build one yourself. The SIU is essentially a tube made of foam rubber, rolled such that the inner diameter is slightly smaller than the diameter of your erect penis. When lubricated, it acts as a sexual interface to whatever you attach it to. In this case, it is inserted into the tailpipe of the car you want to have sex with.

  To build one, you will need black electrical tape, a 'Koozie', a can of soda, and a hefty pair of scissors. A 'Koozie' is a foam rubber dingumbob in which you put a soda. It keeps the soda cold and your hand warm. Being a 'give-away' item, you usually can't find it anywhere. I've had reports of finding them in liquor stores. I've actually found a good deal of them at a local discount-type store.

  There are two kinds, thick walled and thin walled. I've only been able to find the thick kind; the thin kind I've only been able to get through an advertising company. The thin kind is particularly good with tailpipes not much bigger than your cock. Here is what you need to do:

• 1. Measure the circumference of your erect penis. This is most easily done by wrapping a string around your cock (around the shaft, not the head).
• 2. Take the bottom of the Koozie out. You should be left with a tube.
• 3. Cut the wall of the tube from top to bottom so that you are left with a slab of foam rubber which refuses to stay straight.
• 4. Now, carefully cut away material parallel to the first cut until you can put the ends together making a smaller tube, and such that the inner circumference of the tube is slightly smaller (say, by 1/2" or so) than the circumference of your shaft.
• 5. Take a piece of electrical tape. Hold the ends of the tube flush. Place the tape on the cut on the outside to secure the tube in the middle. Now repeat with more tape until the cut is secure. Wrap tape around the whole thing.
• 6. Drink the soda. With the scissors, CAREFULLY cut off the top and bottom of the aluminum can. CAREFULLY cut a strip of aluminum lengthwise from the can, about 3/4" to 1" wide.
• 7. Coat the strip with electrical tape. This is to prevent the edges from cutting.
• 8. Attach the strip to the tube at one end.
• 9. 'Test drive' it! Lube it up with KY (try not to use oil-based lubricant; you may want to use it with more than one person, and then you'll be using a condom). Now, stuff the SIU up the tailpipe and lube well.

You now have several options for fucking your car. One major one is from behind. If the car is automatic shift, then put the car in Park and remove the emergency brake. This will enable the car to rock back and forth to your thrusts. If the car is manual transmission, chock the wheels well, remove the emergency brake, and put the car into gear -- the higher the gear, the more play the car has. This will also enable the car to rock. Kneel behind the car. Now thrust in.

You may not have any trouble with heavier manual transaxled cars, since you may not have to chock the wheels -- the weight of the car will prevent the engine from 'topping out' and moving the car away. Lighter manual transaxled cars are more likely to be topped out by your thrusts, so chocking is necessary. In general, the lower the gear, the less play, but the more difficult it is to top the engine out.

Another major method is to lie down under the car, your upper body under the car, and thrust into the car. It is difficult, though, to make the car rock unless you push on the closest rear tire. I've also had some success leaning on my side and fucking the car sideways. More than one person can fuck a car if it has more than one tailpipe on opposite sides of the car. This will also make the car rock faster and harder since the energy of two people will add.

NEVER fuck a car with the engine on. Firstly, you will be breathing hard, and that means you can poison yourself faster. Secondly, the car will either stall (because there's something blocking the tailpipe, heh) -- causing damage to the engine -- or will force the exhaust out. And you have an idea where the exhaust will go, I trust. Ouch! Fatality City!

If you do not use a condom and you come inside the car, ten or fifteen minutes of driving will kill off anything inside. So you do not have to worry about STDs from that. What you will have to worry about, though, is the SIU itself. It is not being sterilized. Therefore, if you use an SIU you think is going to be used by someone else, use a condom, and use KY jelly or some other water-based lubricant. Remember -- oil rots condoms, and so will an oil-based lubricant.

Enjoy your cars!

Haha!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your harddrive penis is indeed small!

when a terabyte is not a terabyte

[Anonymous Coward]

As you may know if you've been following recent IEC and IEEE standards (or if you've ever bothered to figure out exactly how large a terabyte is), what disk manufacturers call a terabyte and what this article calls a terabyte differ slightly.

When used in the standard way, the "tera" prefix means 1 * 10^12, so a terabyte would be 1 000 000 000 000 bytes. Unfortunately, computer systems don't use base 10 ("decimal"), they use base 2 ("binary"). When trying to express computer storage capacities, somebody noticed that the SI prefixes kilo, mega, giga, tera, and so on (meaning 10^3, 10^6, 10^9, 10^12, ...) were about the same as 2^10, 2^20, 2^30, 2^40, and so on, so used the terms as multiples of 1024 rather than the usual 1000. On the other hand, many hardware manufacturers (especially hard disk manufacturers) use these prefixes in the standard way to mean exactly multiples of 1000.

This discrepancy causes some confusion. For instance, if you could afford to purchase such a 2 terabyte hard disk, you might well be annoyed when your system tells you your disk is almost 200 gigabytes (2 * (2^40 - 10^12)) smaller than you thought it would be (most systems would report a 2 terabyte disk as a 1.8 terabyte disk).

The moral of the story is one of:

1. don't buy 2 terabyte hard disks (blame the hard disk manufacturers)
2. complain about it then continue the current ambiguity
3. use the standard terminology for binary units
   

Interestingly the Slashdot community seems to think it should be a combination of 1 and 2.

Re:when a terabyte is not a terabyte

[Bob Uhl]

The so-called standard terminology to which you refer ranks among the dumber ideas of history. Metriphiles--world-reknowned for their foolishness as it is--cannot grasp the fact that a kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, a megabyte 1,024*1,024 bytes and so on. Naturally, any sane person can deal with this, but there is a tiny-minded sort which cannot.

The solution is to label hard drives in accordance with the rest of computer technology. A kilobyte is 1,024 bytes, not 1,000. The kibibyte does not exist!

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888 123456789012345678
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888 123456789012
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
a0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0 asdasdasdasdasd
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000| alsjdhkjdhkajhakhqwe
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666| basyguivfgyaeutgqgjsz
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666| jqwbhrejkfio
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666| jwqhrowuerir

or Chubby Checker...

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL, but I think Chubby Checker's got him beat hands down.

fsck times

[danny]

Because fsck would take so long, it's unlikely that a non-journalled filesystem would be used on a large partition/logical volume.

You can say that again! Fscking even 60 gig takes a painfully long time - with 10 terabytes it wouldn't be "go away and take a long coffee break", it would be more like "go away and read a book". And the with the 9EB limit he mentions, maybe "go away and write a book"!

Danny.

Re:fsck times

[rtaylor]

Simple solution, use softupdates or a journaling filesystem.

I prefer the former myself.

Re:fsck times

[vidarlo]

This would not be a huge problem, because we are talking about raided systems, not about one harddrive with 2TB.
When u have multiple drives, it only have to scan each drive, which will take the same time if u have one 60 gig disk or 1000 of them mounted in a raid!

Re:fsck times

[orcwog]

Fscking even 60 gig takes a painfully long time

Wow, fsck used to mean fsck, and not....uh...ahem

You know you read /. (and Penny Arcade) too much when you read that and think about Gabe putting a harddrive down his pants.

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888 123456789012345678
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888 123456789012
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
a0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0 asdasdasdasdasd
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000| alsjdhkjdhkajhakhqwe
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666| basyguivfgyaeutgqgjsz
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666| jqwbhrejkfio
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666| jwqhrowuerir

humm, just a simple question...

[jedie]

Okay there were some remarks about storing neurons and stuff on HDs... but beside that, _WHAT_ the hell would need 2TB?
I'm still a high-school student so I haven't the faintest idea what goes on in enterprise-size companies.. so if someone could shed light on this I'd appreciate it

Re:humm, just a simple question...

[SnAzBaZ]

10 years ago noone could comprehend why you would need a 40GB HD, but look at what we have now?

Re:humm, just a simple question...

[hitchhacker]

I work with Seismic data, usually for finding natural resources like oil. Since the data is aquired from surveying the under-ground with sound waves, the amount of data possible is insane. The software I work with, has to limit the files to 2 gig because of the 32 bit file offset limit.
I'm sure nuclear simulations, or any natural simulation (like weather) will create massive datasets too.

metric

Re:humm, just a simple question...

[jpc]

There is no 2GB filesize limit. Hasnt been for some time. I have many files larger than this. Go on, make one yourself with dd and you will see.

Re:humm, just a simple question...

[coats]

I'm sure nuclear simulations, or any natural simulation (like weather) will create massive datasets too.

Consider a seasonal air pollution study at the continental scale.

You want at least a 20KM grid resolution (actually, you rather better than that, but we have real-world constraints in my business :-) -- that means something like a 200x200x25 grid. So that (at 4 bytes/number), one 3D state variable occupies 4 MB. For air pollution, you will need about 60 such variables (12 meteorology state variables, and another 48 or so chemistry variables): 240 MB per time step.

The summer air pollution season is about 100 days long, and you'll want to use a time step of half an hour or better (by Courant's theorem, wind speed gives the translation factor between spatial resolution and the required temporal), so that's 4800 time steps.

240 MB/step times 4800 steps -- about a terabyte.

Go to a (better) 10KM resolution, and the compute time and data set size go up by 2^4. fwiw.

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888 123456789012345678
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888 123456789012
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
a0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0 asdasdasdasdasd
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000| alsjdhkjdhkajhakhqwe
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666| basyguivfgyaeutgqgjsz
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666| jqwbhrejkfio
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666| jwqhrowuerir

What about NFS File systems

[Mister G]

While not on the actual linux box, what about sizes of very large (e.g. > 2.1 TB) NFS mounts?

Truman Show

[jaavaaguru]

Imagine if the Trueman Show (like in the movie) was recorded as one huge MPEG video - you could store it one of of these! :-)

You could fit movies of everything anyone's ever seen on a Beowulf cluster of these filesystems!

Re:Truman Show

[rtaylor]

Curious....

I forget the specifics, but lets say 30 years x an average of 400 cameras (number grew as show got larger) x good quality divx (.3MB/sec)

105EB for the Trueman Show.

I'm sure there is alot of cruft that isn't required -- like 8 hours a night among other things, and you only actually need a few of the cameras recording at any given time -- but it's still a few EBs for decent viewing quality.

I also left out any additional channels dedicated to describing it, extra sound channels for announcers, etc.

Re:Truman Show

[SnAzBaZ]

Hmm, lets say you're storing it in standard VCD format, which is 1150kbps, with sound at 192kbps, that's 167.75 KB per second of film.

That's 13.822174 GB per day. Lets say Truman lives until he's 80. That's 402501.70688 GB of film, which is what? 393.068073 TB ? And that's just assuming one camera :)

Re:Truman Show

[Weh]

you could also keep a local cache of everything on Kazaa (provided that you manage to download it)

Mod-point wasting post!

[Anonymous Coward]

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000|
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666|
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666|
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666|

88888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888
8/88888\8888888888888\888888888888/8888\8888888
|8888888|8888888888888\8888888888|888888|888888 123456789012345678
|8888888`.8888888888888|888888888|8888888:88888
`88888888|8888888888888|88888888\|8888888|88888
8\8888888|8/8888888/88\\\888--__8\\8888888:8888
88\888888\/888_--~~8888888888~--__|8\88888|8888 123456789012
888\888888\_-~88888888888888888888~-_\8888|8888
0000\_00000\00000000_.--------.______\|000|0000
000000\00000\______//0_0___0_0(_(__>00\000|000 0
a0000000\000.00C0___)00______0(_(____>00|00/000 0
0000000/\0|000C0____)/ \0(_____>00|_/00000
000000/0/\|000C_____) |00(___>000/00\0000
00000|000(000_C_____)\______/00//0_/0/00000\000
00000|0000\00|__000\\_________//0(__/0000000|00
0000|0\0000\____)000`----000--'0000000000000|00
0000|00\_0000000000___\ /_0000000000_/0|0 asdasdasdasdasd
000|00000000000000/0000| |00\000000000000| alsjdhkjdhkajhakhqwe
000|0000000000000|0000/ \00\00000000000|0
666|6666666666/6/6666| |66\66666666666|0
666|666666666/6/666666\__/\___/6666|6666666666| basyguivfgyaeutgqgjsz
66|66666666666/66666666| |6666666|666666666| jqwbhrejkfio
66|6666666666|666666666| |6666666|666666666| jwqhrowuerir

arithmetic?

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who wish to communicate with the rest of the world, the following calculations actually make sense:

• 10^18 bytes = 1 000 000 000 000 000 bytes = 1 decimal terabyte = 1 terabyte = 1 TB
• 2^50 bytes = 1 125 899 906 842 624 bytes = 1 binary terabyte = 1 tebibyte = 1 TiB

For the uninitiated, these terms are described here

Even accounting for your typographical error, 2^63 != 9 * 10^18 (9223372036854775808 != 9000000000000000000)

Re:arithmetic?

[Anonymous Coward]

we're talking about computers here. some 10% here or there doesn't count shit. moore and all that.

Re:arithmetic?

[Anonymous Coward]

For those who wish to communicate with the rest of the world, the following calculations actually make sense:

Well... almost: 1 TB = 10^12 bytes (1000 GB), and 1 TiB is 2^40 bytes (1024 GiB).

</nitpicking>

No problem

[Beliskner]

Multi-terrabyte files. Hmmmm.

Problem solved: Use lzip

MBA Managers won't notice ;-)

For the hardcore, we can build lzip into the FS. So we'll have Reiserfs, ext2, ext3, JFS, and lzipFS. Heck lzipFS might be faster than RAM!

Re:No problem

[Gothmolly]

Only if you can "tune" your lzipFS and trade compression for speed. Something like:

tunelzipfs -c [compression %] /dev/sda1

Re:No problem

[Beliskner]

Only if you can "tune" your lzipFS and trade compression for speed. Something like:

tunelzipfs -c [compression %] /dev/sda1

Uhhh, dude, I was kidding, *someone please mod parent as funny before other innocent people get confused*. Lzip is lossy compression. With a MySQL database or similar this would REALLY test the recovery features. Since MySQL doesn't attach a CRC to each field to ensure field data integrity, you might as well set lzip to 100% compression.

In other words when you try to save a file to lzipFS it might as well return, "yeah" immediately. You tell lzipFS to fsync() and it'll return "yeah" immediately

class lzipFS {
.....
long int fsync() {
// cache->doflush(); /* what we save will be lossy so, what's the point? */
return YEEEEAH_FSYNC_SUCCESFUL;
.....
}}

Re:No problem

[Tony-A]

Ah, finally an explanation for Microsoft Windows random behavior.

GPFS beyond 100TB

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that several orgs are looking at using GPFS in really large storage systems for DTV production and storage using Redhat.

http://www-1.ibm.com/servers/eserver/clusters/so ft ware/gpfs.html

what is an exabyte? (list of prefixes beyond gigs)

[Michael Wardle]

"9 exabytes" big, which is roughly 1,000,000 terabytes
Very roughly, perhaps. 9 exabytes is actually 9,000,000 terabytes. ;-)

For those that haven't got hard disks this big, here's a list of names for sizes beyond megabytes and gigabytes.

Maybe Peter Chubb is wrong.

[nr]

Peter explains, "Linux is limited to 2TB filesystems even on 64-bit systems, because there are various places where the block offset on disc are assigned to unsigned or int 32-bit variables."

From the Linux Kernel mailinglist on the status of XFS merge into 2.5:

I know it's been discussed to death, but I am making a formal request to you to include XFS in the main kernel. We (The Sloan Digital Sky Survey) and many, many other groups here at Fermilab would be very happy to have this in the main tree. Currently the SDSS has ~20TB of XFS filesystems, most of which is in our 14 fileservers and database machines. The D-Zero experiment has ~140 desktops running XFS and several XFS fileservers. We've been using it since it was released, and have found it to be very reliable. Uh, so Peter Chubb says there is a 2 TB limit, but these science guys on Fermilab are using Linux with 20 TB filesystems on the SGI XFS port.

Re:Maybe Peter Chubb is wrong.

[AaronMB]

It sounds more like they are saying they have a group of filesystems whose total size is 20 TB. Not necessarily a 20TB filesystem.
-Aaron

So, what about the maximum filesize?

[Bake]

Or is that _still_ at a meager 2GB limit?

Re:So, what about the maximum filesize?

[Anonymous Coward]

Recent kernels and recent glibc's and recent distros have support for large files. See http://www.suse.de/~aj/linux_lfs.html

size_t, off_t, etc...

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this why typedefs like size_t, ssize_t, off_t, loff_t, and so on exist? Upping the filesystem size should just be a matter of changing whichever typedef is appropriate from an int to a long or a long long or something, right?

Mod-point wasting post!!!

[Serial Troller]

OPEN SOURCE MISCONCEPTIONS By Serial Troller

Myth: Open Source is written by heterosexuals.

Fact: All Open Source development is done by raging homosexuals. The more flaming examples include Anal Cox, Linus Turdballs, Eric Ass-Reaming Raymond, and the entire Slashdot crew. The ringleader of the slashdotters, a man named CmdrTaco, engages in a practice known as Taco-snotting, along with his faggot-buddies Jeff Homos Bates and CowBoiKneel.

Myth: Open Source is written for heterosexuals.

Fact: Using Open Source software can cause suppressed homosexual fantasies to surface, leading to all out flaming faggotry within 6-8 weeks. Anecdotes of otherwise hetero men turning queer are far too numerous to count, but a few examples stand out. In one case, a man was arrested loitering outside an elementary school and making sexual overtures to several children: he quickly confessed that shortly after installing the Mozilla browser on his computer, he began to have uncontrollable urges to, to put it simply, have his cock sucked off by little boys. He soon met several other like-minded men through discussions on the Bugger Zilla mailing list (all already homosexuals), who together kidnapped a total of seven children whom they brought back to their apartment and sodomized. The other two men are still at large and believed to still be using Mozilla.

Myth: Open Source is multicultural.

Fact: Open Source is openly racist.

Myth: Open Source is democratic.

Fact: Open Source is controlled by a few narrow-minded zealots (mentioned throughout this post), most of whom are either Communists, Stalinists, Nazis, or Fascists. Additionally, Open Source supports terrorism.

Myth: Open Source is tolerant of religious preferences.

Fact: Open Source developers regularly engage in holy wars over the superiority of various Open Source projects, such as the Emacs program (preferred by Christians) versus vi (used mostly by neo-pagans and Satanists); or the KDE desktop (a favorite among Muslims) versus the GNOME project (particularly favored by Jews). Posts initiating crusades or jihads against other developers can be found regularly throughout the newsgroups and mailing lists.

Myth: Open Source is tolerant of sexual preference.

Fact: See above. Either you are a homo, you become a homo, or you never visit Richard Stallman alone in his office and hope to God you never meet him on the street at night.

Myth: Open Source is tolerant of political differences.

Fact: Open Source is an anarcho-communist philosophy bent on the destruction of capitalism. The very same Richard Stallman, a man whose name is disturbingly reminiscent of Stalin, has stated several times in public that his vision includes the subjugation of all who own intellectual properties under the jackboot of the GPL. The GPL is a pernicious piece of literature lifted straight from Karl Marxs Communist Manifesto, and is fortunately banned in many democratic nations.

____________________

© 2002 Serial Troller. Permission to reproduce this document is granted provided that you send all the bukkake porn you can find to serialtroller@hotmail.com.

Not an impossible amount of data

[wirelessbuzzers]

Here is a (somewhet incomplete) answer to the two questions everyone seems to have about 2TB of data:

1) Where would you store it?
Well, you could store it in a holographic Tapestry drive. The prototype, just unveiled a few months ago, stores 100GB in a removable disk, and that is nowhere near the max density of the technology. In their section on projects for the tech, they say that a floppy-sized disk should hold about 1TB in a couple years. Impressive.

2) What would you do with it?
Well, other than high-definition video or scientific experiments, nothing on your own PC, unless you are making a database of all the MP3s ever made or backing up the Library of Congress. But on a file server, you could easily use this much space. The 2TB limit will probably never affect most home users (realizes he will be quoted as an idiot in 10 years when 50TB HDs are standard). On the other hand, Tapestry will probably be useful in portable devices, esp video cameras.

Re:Not an impossible amount of data

[Anonymous Coward]

there should be a project to create a database of all the mp3s in existence. this would be beyond gigabytes. anyone know of any such projects?

Filesystem on tape

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Reaching beyond terabytes, beyond pentabytes, on into exabytes

Woohoo! A filesytem on a tape drive, that's what I need.

Re:Filesystem on tape

[mbyte]

there are sollutions for windows that do that for many many years

I had a 2 gb DAT streamer working under win98 and some special programm, that presented the tape as just another drive letter, it was really cool, expect the latency ;)

Re:Filesystem on tape

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Yeah, yeah - Tapedisk and Seagate's Direct Tape Access were the most common such tools. It was a joke though.

Swappable parts, divorce from OS

[Tablizer]

It seems to me that it would be more practical to make the file storage and management system be *independent* of the OS. This would allow storage companies to get economies of scale by not having to worry about OS-specific issues.

The "native" disk storage could be used as a kind of cache. The "big fat" storage would be like a *service* that could be local or remote. The OS would not care. It simply makes an API call to the "storage service".

Re:Swappable parts, divorce from OS

[Error27]

That's what you do sometimes.

But the storage device needs to run on something. It needs to have an IP stack, an network card driver, filesystem support etc and so it needs an OS.

Re:Swappable parts, divorce from OS

[Tablizer]

(* But the storage device needs to run on something. It needs to have an IP stack, an network card driver, filesystem support etc and so it needs an OS. *)

Maybe a "controller" of some sort. I was thinking that any networking would be by a "manager OS" but not the controller itself. The manager OS would not be using its own file system. IOW, the manager OS might still have to be local with the controller. However, if you have a direct connection between the disk system and the application's OS, then you would not need a seperate manager OS for networking.

I suppose there are a lot of different ways to partitian it all. My point is that a big file/disk system can exist independantly of the OS so that even Windows 3.1 could access huge amounts of storage without having it built-in to the OS.

Trademark infringement

[Webmoth]

Looks like we'll have to come up with a different naming scheme. Someone's already trademarked the exabyte.

Couldn't it weaken the trademark to have Western Digital or Seagate making a '9 exabyte' hard drive? Or HP or Sony making an 'exabyte-class' tape drive? Wouldn't a judge find (in favor of Exabyte) that the consumer would easily be confused?

*The USPTO are idiots.*

Re:Trademark infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me a break. "exa" is an international standard SI unit prefix. If you name your company "kilometer systems, incorporated" you can't go around complaining that your name is being confused with a kilometer.

Re:Trademark infringement

[Anonymous Coward]

IANAL. However....

Just because someone has a trademark on word doesn't remove that word from the lexicon of common usage. A trademark only limits that word for the direct purposes of branding/identification. If the sentence fragment doesn't invovle that direct purpose trademarks don't apply.

For example there are Macintosh apples. You don't see the Apple Corp. trademark next those apples in you grocery store do you? It is still a valid adjective to describe something that is not a computer. (especially since that was the case before the company was founded.)

Similarly with Java. Java is only trademarked in the usage "the Java(tm) programming language". (note the usage as an adjective in 'Official' Sun(tm) commincations. If I ask for a cup of java.... I need pay no homage to Sun(tm). The Sun will come up tomorrow.

The oracle of delphi..... no Uncle Larry doesn't profit from nor can inhibit that usage.

It is kind of dumb that a company would pick a word that is primarily an adjective. Since trademarks really only have deep traction when used as an adjective. If you let them slip into usage as a verb ( 'xerox me a couple of copies of that") then you start to get into trouble. Adjectives are not good choices either. Nouns (which then are transitioned to ajdectives are better).

I'm not sure it is up to the USPTO is stop folks from trademarking something that is dubious. That's the filer's problem. (Likely why Google is not Googol. :-) ).

However, as long as companies stay away from placing that adjective in their product's official name, there shouldn't be any tradmark conflicts.
Usage in the product description is not conflicting at all.

Re:Trademark infringement

[Detritus]

Exabyte can't prevent people from using the word exabyte. Many trademarks are composed of common words. For example, Coke, Mountain Dew, Java, Sun, Ford, Mercury, Fiat, Jaguar.

Announcement

[Anonymous Coward]

With this story posting, it's official:

Timothy is, without doubt, the worst Slashdot story poster in the universe.

You pay: latency

[Anonymous Coward]

Try running lmbench on MacOS X, or even on
plain FreeBSD. Now try on Linux, and then
ask yourself why you got your ass whipped.

There is a microkernel Linux called MkLinux.
It works just like MacOS X. Nobody uses this
because Linux users don't fall for the hype.
Microkernels are slow by nature.

Linus has the guts to say NO to the latest
cool trendy features. He has the guts to
say NO to supporting stuff that nobody will
be using for the next few years, and then
say YES when the time is right.

Microkernels suffer from communication
overhead. No matter how low you make it,
you still won't beat ZERO. So you are
doomed to slow performance, and only look
good when the non-microkernel OS that you
compare against is lame. Then you suffer
the complexity of managing the messages,
because when you glue simple components
together the GLUE IS NOT FREE. Implementing
UNIX semantics forces you to send lots of
messages or, as is the case with MacOS X,
to just give up and put a BSD kernel on top
of a now-pointless microkernel layer.

64 bit = rest, finally

[vslashg]

Remember all the hell when the world moved from 16 bit to 32 bit? All sorts of lazy code was broken. And here we go again. This isn't a Linux thing or a Windows thing; it's just the basic nature of human beings.

The good news is, once we move to a 64-bit processor, that's it. We'll correct the code one more time and that's the end of it, since 64 bit ints are sufficient for any imaginable program.

Re:64 bit = rest, finally

[oldsk8r]

I've already moved to 64bits with my IA64 box. In fact I'm about to add another 2TB to my 1TB RAID, I may have to do a bit of digging now though. Shame that, I actually need at least 15TB when the system goes live. Could always move it onto my AIX system though, that has at least 370TB on HSM.

Re:64 bit = rest, finally

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

since 64 bit ints are sufficient for any imaginable program.

That's just like saying, no one would ever need more than 640K.

Time?

[sirfuzz]

OK, lots of usable storage space is good, but what about the time epoch? Won't it run out in 2036 or something?
When's that going to be fixed?

Actually

[cscx]

Actually it's rumored to be based on SQL Server.

false

[Anonymous Coward]

Your numbers would yield 105 petabytes, not 105 exabytes. Huge difference.

Speed is not all that counts

[panthro]

Not every application is primarily concerned with speed. It kills me how many Linux people can't understand why anyone would want to sacrifice speed for any reason.

Microkernels may be slightly slower by nature than monolithic kernels like Linux, but the difference is rapidly becoming a nonissue with increasing processor speeds and better kernel designs.

In the meantime, microkernels are allowing for a host of new and useful features that monolithics just can't do: user-mounted file systems, increased security at the kernel level, dramatically increased ease and speed of development of kernel-level components, the ability to load entire separate operating systems interfacing with the same or separate hardware with no external software... to name a few.

Eventually speed will no longer be considered a primary goal, in fact, it is slowly but surely becoming trivial. Microkernels will win out if monolithic/Linux advocates can only use the speed argument to try to show the superiority of their kernel.

Re: -bibytes

[Bob Uhl]

Why the *$&% was the parent modded up? The day any sane person (as opposed to a hypocephilic metriphile) uses kibibye, mebibyte, gibibyte or any of those thrice-accursed neologisms is the day that the world begins to end.

Intelligent people have no problem with the idea that a kilobyte has 1,024 characters. Hard drive manufacturers always have, but they are hardly paragons worthy of emulation.

Stop out the kibibyte nonsense now, before it gets any further.

What's greater than Exabyte ?

[Taco Cowboy]

When things go larger and larger, I get confused.

Okay, I know what's Exabyte, but what are the-still-larger ones ?

Re:What's greater than Exabyte ?

[Hal-9001]

They're here

That buys you 6 more orders of magnitude...good enough for government work! ;-)

Re:What's greater than Exabyte ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Acording to http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/binary.html we would speak of pebibytes..

Re: -bibytes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the *$&% was the parent modded up? The day any sane person (as opposed to a hypocephilic metriphile) uses kibibye, mebibyte, gibibyte or any of those thrice-accursed neologisms is the day that the world begins to end.

Without metric (more correctly called SI), you would not have the terms kilo, mega, giga, and so on to abuse. These SI prefixes are so useful precisely because they are standardized in their meaning and are widely recognized.

Intelligent people have no problem with the idea that a kilobyte has 1,024 characters.

s/Intelligent/Ignorant

That kilo is a long-standardized term meaning 1000 in every field except for computer science should concern you. I suppose you are unfamiliar with the terms kilogram, kilometer, kilohertz, and the many other standard SI units (or prefix + unit combiniations). The exact meaning of kilo as 1000 has great weight thruout the world. When engineers, physicists, mathematicians, and indeed general people first use computers, it is most reasonable to expect kilo to mean 1000. To not accept this logical system agreed on by many of the world's most important standards bodies (including those in the computing and engineering fields) seems stubborn.

Would you have the world redefine kilometer as being 1024 meters?

Would you blatantly ignore IEC/ANSI C standards when coding to the point of confusion?

Rather than attacking the personality or state of mind of those in favor of this proposal (which by extension includes IEC and IEEE members), would you care to provide a reasoned argument against these standards?

I should also mention that what you seem attached too seems far from uniform in its use.