Re: 64-bit block sizes on 32-bit systems

Andreas Dilger
2001-03-26T19:12:45Z

Matthew Wilcox writes:
> On Mon, Mar 26, 2001 at 10:47:13AM -0700, Andreas Dilger wrote:
> > What do you mean by problems 5 years down the road? The real issue is that
> > this 32-bit block count limit affects composite devices like MD RAID and
> > LVM today, not just individual disks. There have been several postings
> > I have seen with people having a problem _today_ with a 2TB limit on
> > devices.
>
> people who can afford 2TB of disc can afford to buy a 64-bit processor.

Get real. If you buy (cheapest) 40GB IDE disks, I can have 2TB for
U$9200 (not including controllers). In 1 year it will be half, etc.
I expect I will start moving my DVD collection to disk storage in an
ia32 system once price/GB falls by 50% from current levels. This is
just for home use, let alone what large companies want to do. I am
fully expecting hard drive price/GB to keep falling at its current rate.

This whole "64-bit" fallacy has got to stop. First it was "anybody
who needs files > 2GB should use a 64-bit CPU", wrong. Then it was
"anybody who needs > 1GB RAM should use a 64-bit CPU", wrong. Now it is
"anybody who needs > 2TB disk should use a 64-bit CPU", soon to be wrong.
I don't think the millions of 32-bit systems will disappear overnight,
or even in 10 years, yet we already have single IDE disks > 100GB, and
in 2 or 3 years we will have single IDE disks > 1TB that people will
want to use in their 32-bit systems.

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger \ "If a man ate a pound of pasta and a pound of antipasto,
\ would they cancel out, leaving him still hungry?"
http://www-mddsp.enel.ucalgary.ca/People/adilger/ -- Dogbert