----- Original Message -----
From: NetBSD Bob <nbsdbob@weedcon1.cropsci.ncsu.edu>
To: emanuel stiebler <emu@ecubics.com>
Cc: <port-pmax@netbsd.org>
Sent: Monday, January 10, 2000 07:41
Subject: Re: Any HD size limitations on boot disk?


> > > > I don't know whether I meet your question exactly but...
> > > >
> > > > yesterday I installed a new NetBSD 1.4.1 over my home network onto a
> > > > IBM 18 GB SCSI disk (ok, a little oversized, but just to try it...)
> > > > in a DECstation 2100.
> > >
> > > Hey, that exactly answers me question.  Now, now long will it take you
> > > to fill up 18gb on a 2100.....(:+}}...
> >
> > I don't think, that's the right answer :-(
> > It only works, if your bootfile is in the first 1 GByte.
> > AFAIR, the PROM uses only short SCSI-1 commands, so it only can reach
the
> > first sectors.
>
> For the sake of discussion, on a boot drive, where partition a was always
> first, and under say 100mb in size, would it matter how big the drives
> were, or would it matter how big following partitions were?

In this situation, it should work ;-)

> If it has the root partition well under the 1gig limit, then it should
> never reach a condition where boot was outside that limit.

True.

> If that was so, then only file system sizes might be a problem,

We had this discussion lately (AFAIF), and this limit is in the TBytes, so
yuo shouldn't have any problems here ;-)

> and I
> can't imagine wanting to make file system much larger than 1 or 2 gig,
> because of the size of the tables involved, and possible speed reductions
> in handling such large partitions.
>
> Is that reasonable?
>
> I guess my concern was whether or not the file system would wrap around
> inadvertently to track 0 if it reached a certain size or cylinder count
> limit.  If that is not a particular problem, then I would not expect
> any real problems across disk sizes, except for may be the odd condition
> where a whole large drive was used as one partition (probably not good
> practice on any system).

Problem would only exist, if your root partition is bigger than 1 GByte, ...

> I just did not want to come up into any problematic combinations that
> might nuke my system.

one down, millions to go ;-)

cheers,
emanuel