Re: blocksizes

[mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost (Michael van Elst)]

woods%planix.ca@localhost ("Greg A. Woods") writes:

>Indeed.  Or at least using only _one_ logical block size that's
>consistent for the system across all hardware that can be used by the
>system.

Now, that's the easiest, and we already have this (in the kernel).


>However for a portable system I think
>the on-disk filesystem representation should try to use a single logical
>sector size across all hardware.

It still wouldn't be perfect. Block size is one thing, block alignment
the next. A filesystem with 1k blocks (filesystem units == clusters)
has problems to work on disks with 2k blocks (device units == sectors).
The only solution is expensive buffering and read-modify-write updates.

Fortunately this is a pretty academic problem and I don't see a reason
to solve this problem in the kernel. There are plenty of alternatives.

-- 
-- 
                                Michael van Elst
Internet: mlelstv%serpens.de@localhost
                                "A potential Snark may lurk in every tree."