Subject: Re: ATA disks > 128GB (was Re: newfs can't make filesystems over 1TB in size)
To: None <current-users@netbsd.org>
From: Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
List: current-users
Date: 12/07/2002 15:43:03
On Sat, Dec 07, 2002 at 03:06:06PM +0100, Klaus Heinz wrote:
> Jaromir Dolecek wrote:
> 
> > There appears to be some info regarding this on
> > 	http://www.netbsd.org/Misc/features.html#large-filesystems
> > perhaps also elsewhere on NetBSD site.
> 
> This reminds me we should update the information on this page; it still
> talks about limits of 8GB and 34GB.
> A little search shows, that in
>   http://mail-index.netbsd.org/current-users/2002/11/04/0012.html
> 
> Manuel suggests, that NetBSD supports 48-bit LBA addresses beginning
> with release 1.6. Can anyone confirm this who actually tried that?
> 
> Did I understand the solution for ATA disks > 128GB correctly, that it's
> only a matter of software (in the OS and/or the machine firmware) and
> you do _not_ need a new ATA host adapter?

Basic ATA controllers should not have any problems with it.
But I suspect some DMA-capable controllers are a bit too smart, and will
break on the double-writing of the LBA register. Unfortunably the only
way to know is to try it for each controllers (or to try to get the info 
from other OSes).

-- 
Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>
     NetBSD: 23 ans d'experience feront toujours la difference
--