Novell LINUX ENTERPRISE SERVER 11 - STORAGE ADMINISTRATION GUIDE 2-23-2010, Administration Manual, Page: 19 / 140

Overview of File Systems in Linux 19
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1.4 Large File Support in Linux
Originally, Linux supported a maximum file size of 2 GB. This was enough before the explosion of
multimedia and as long as no one tried to manipulate huge databases on Linux. Becoming more and
more important for server computing, the kernel and C library were modified to support file sizes
larger than 2 GB when using a new set of interfaces that applications must use. Today, almost all
major file systems offer LFS support, allowing you to perform high-end computing.
Table 1-2 offers
an overview of the current limitations of Linux files and file systems.
Table 1-2
Maximum Sizes of File Systems (On-Disk Format)
IMPORTANT: Table 1-2 describes the limitations regarding the on-disk format. The 2.6 Linux
kernel imposes its own limits on the size of files and file systems handled by it. These are as follows:
File Size
On 32-bit systems, files cannot exceed 2 TB (2
41
bytes).
File System Size
File systems can be up to 2
73
bytes in size. However, this limit is still out of reach for the
currently available hardware.
1.5 Additional Information
The File System Primer (http://wiki.novell.com/index.php/File_System_Primer) on the Novell Web
site describes a variety of file systems for Linux. It discusses the file systems, why there are so
many, and which ones are the best to use for which workloads and data.
vfat Virtual FAT: Extension of the fat file system (supports long filenames).
ntfs
Windows NT file system; read-only.
File System File Size (Bytes) File System Size (Bytes)
Ext2 or Ext3 (1 KB block size) 2
34
(16 GB) 2
41
(2 TB)
Ext2 or Ext3 (2 KB block size) 2
38
(256 GB) 2
43
(8 TB)
Ext2 or Ext3 (4 KB block size) 2
41
(2 TB) 2
44
-4096 (16 TB-4096 Bytes)
Ext2 or Ext3 (8 KB block size)
(systems with 8 KB pages, like
Alpha) 2
46
(64 TB) 2
45
(32 TB)
ReiserFS v3 2
46
(64 TB) 2
45
(32 TB)
XFS 2
63
(8 EB) 2
63
(8 EB)
NFSv2 (client side) 2
31
(2 GB) 2
63
(8 EB)
NFSv3 (client side) 2
63
(8 EB) 2
63
(8 EB)
File System Type Description