almanach storage

size limit errors

Limits for a single file
2GB  FAT16, HFS
4GB  FAT32
8GB  FAT64 (Windows NT)

Harddisk size limits reason Cyl Head Sect size net size
540MB (MegaByte) IDE BIOS INT13h 1024 16 63 512 528.482.304Byte
1GB (GigaByte) SCSI BIOS (old) 1024 64 32 512 1.073.741.824Byte
2GB BIOS bug LBA bit 13 bug 2.097.414.144Byte
2GB EIDE BIOS 4096 16 63 512 2.113.929.216Byte
2GB FAT16 [DOS] 65525 cluster 32768 2.147.123.200Byte
2GB overflow error 32bit int w/ +/- [31bit]  
4GB FAT16 [WinNT] 65525 cluster 65536 4.294.246.400Byte
4GB OS/2 driver bug update driver IBM1S056.ADD
8GB EIDE BIOS INT13h 1024 255 63 512 8.422.686.720Byte
32GB Award BIOS bug update BIOS if available
136.9GB ATA spec v5 2^28 *512
144PB (PetaByte) ATA spec v6 2^48 *512
9.4TB (TeraByte) ATA spec v7 ? 2^64 *512
16EB (ExaByte) WinNT          

See Microsoft KB 310561 for explanations on FAT16 limits
See Microsoft KB 184006 for explanations on FAT32 limits

  Int 13h ATA spec   common
Sec/track 63 255 >> 63
Heads 255 16 >> 16
Cyl 1024 65536 >> 1024
  V V V
  8.4GB 136.9GB   528.4MB

BIOS interface   EIDE LBA mode
 
0 ... 1023 cylinder  
Logical
sector
number
  Bit 24...27 head register
0 ... 255 head     Bit 8...23 cylinder register
0 ... 63 sector     Bit 0...7 sector register

Partition size Block size
0.26 - 8.0GB 4kB
8.0 - 16.0GB 8kB
16.0 - 32.0GB 16kB
32.0 - 64.0GB 32kB
64.0 - 64kB (Windows NT only)