64 bit maximum file size

[Michael Hipp]

Chong Yu Meng wrote:
> First off, a Happy Chinese New Year to all members on this list ! This
> is supposedly the year of the Golden Pig (or Fire Pig, depending on who
> you ask), which is especially auspicious because it only comes around
> once every 60 years!

With the mention of "fire pig", I fear this will turn into YABT (Yet 
Another Barbecue Thread).

Even tho everyone knows that real barbecue is beef.

> Here's my question: I read somewhere that the maximum file size for
> 32-bit ext3 filesystems is 2GB, and that for 64-bit Linux it should
> reach into the terabytes! I checked this up on Wikipedia
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_file_systems) and the entry
> for ext3 does not differentiate between 32-bit and 64-bit processors,
> which leads me to think that that my initial information, though it
> sounds plausible, is probably wrong.

All of my ext3 systems are 32 bit and all will do files larger than 2GB.

The 32/64 distinction comes in the item in the c header files that 
determines the length of a file pointer. It's been 64 bits for quite a 
while now. But it has *nothing* to do with the native word length of the 
processor itself.

No worries.

Michael