Guest
(Time to fire up your embedded compilers and write some new API code ! 
)
I will share with you what I have learned so far from excursion into the ms-dos age and "retro-gaming" and such:
Addressing limitations are super annoying in all kinds of ways:
1. 2GB Harddisk/partition size limitations.
2. 16 bit memory Memory limitations.
3. 64 MB ram limitations (though have not yet run into this for real)>
The most annoying one was limitation in VMWare Workstation 8 not supporting usb mass storage devices large than 2 Terrabytes.
My conclusion for now is we must not repeat the mistakes of the past and prepare for the future.
40 Years from now harddisks bigger than 16 exabytes might exist for consumers and then when trying to virtualize 64 bit windows it will becoming annoying again if it can't be done because the software does not support 128 bit block addressing.
For this reason my recommendation to VM Ware is to create a 128 bit API, possibly a plugin system, so that in the future a driver/plug in can be written to make VM Ware work with 128 bit block addressing so it can read/write/find/store more data on futuristics harddisk.
To test this API, random data can be generated for specific offsets. The randseed can be set to the offset/block number to allows generate the same data for verification purposes for example.
This plug-in should be build into VM Ware sooner then later.
Another one of my concerns is NTFS of Microsoft Windows. It is as far as I know 64 bit limited.
My drives are already 4 TB, if I add them up could be as much as 10 TB or even 16 TB.
That means at least 40 bits, or 44 bits or so.
So NTFS is 20 bits away before it runs into limitations.
Harddisks may grow at a different rate than Moore's Law.
However there is a new kid in town "SSD" and such and they are created with transistors and their growth rate may be much higher than harddisks the coming years.
I don't know exact data but I will use both based on my own experience:
1986 ? C64, 64 KB of data on floppy
1992 ? MS-DOS/PC 80486 2.0 MB on floppy, Seagate, Capacity: 120 MB on harddisk
1996 ? Pentium 166, Quantum Fireball 3.5 TM, Capacity: 2 GB on harddisk.
1999 ? Pentium III 450 MHZ, Harddisk: 16 GB (for speed dumb) and later 120 GB.(2004)
2006 DreamPC AMD X2 3800+ Harddisks: 512 GB (2006) and, 2 TB (2011) 2 TB (2019). 2 TB (2020)
Now: 2020, 4 TB on usb mass storage device.
So some significant stagnation on harddisk front over last 14 years.
However there is also "speak" of 100 TB SSD coming from Samsung, 2018 or so..
Going to put this roughly in an ASCII chart
100 TB
10 TB AMD X2 AMD X2
1 TB AMD X2
100 GB PIII
10 GB PIII
1 GB P166
100 MB 80486
10 MB
1 MB FLOPPY
100 KB C64
1985 - 1990 - 1995 - 2000 - 2005 - 2010 - 2015 - 2020
I think from this chart it can be seen that harddisk capacity is slowing down.
While flash/sd/ssd capacity is not shown in this chart it is probably ramping up.
One of the reasons of the slow down of harddisk capacity might also have to do with BIOS limitations of old systems. I purchased a 2 TB harddisk in 2020, just so I could fit it into DreamPC/AMD X2 3800+ if I need that capacity to maybe re-install windows 7 x64 edition with platform update. So far I have not done that yet, but did it install it on USB stick to see what it would be like and it's quite pleasing to do that. Geforce Now also works on it which is quite weird to game on the cloud.
Anyway it's hard to say what the exact growth rate is there are probably two;
Harddisk growth rate. It think the chart does show quite nicely it's roughly 10x each 5 years.
SSD growth rate. For now my guess is this will follow Moore's Law. Roughly double capacity each 1.5 years.
So let's calculate when NTFS will run out of bits for consumers/home users like me !
It's either the SSD rate which would mean 20x1.5 = 25 years.
or
The harddisk rate which would mean 20 bits left which is 1000x1000.
So log(1.000.000) = 6 x 5 = 30 years.
So either way in roughly 30 years NTFS will not be sufficient anymore.
CPU/Software/Compiler/Assembler/Linker/Debugger/Drivers/Operating System/GUI/File System/BIOS/EUFI/Protocols/Sata?
A lot of stuff will need to change to be able to support 128 bit harddisks if growth of capacity continues.
Also hundreds of years from now space will become very important for IT to store capacity in space =D
And then thousands of years from now we will be dumping computers in space that are not dragged along by the sun and we will communicate with them via quantum communications =D
So some investments into space elevator, space ships and space technology will also become important for IT sector =D
I feel slightly at uneasy that Windows 10 does not yet have a NTFS 128 bit file system.
Bye,
Skybuck.
)I will share with you what I have learned so far from excursion into the ms-dos age and "retro-gaming" and such:
Addressing limitations are super annoying in all kinds of ways:
1. 2GB Harddisk/partition size limitations.
2. 16 bit memory Memory limitations.
3. 64 MB ram limitations (though have not yet run into this for real)>
The most annoying one was limitation in VMWare Workstation 8 not supporting usb mass storage devices large than 2 Terrabytes.
My conclusion for now is we must not repeat the mistakes of the past and prepare for the future.
40 Years from now harddisks bigger than 16 exabytes might exist for consumers and then when trying to virtualize 64 bit windows it will becoming annoying again if it can't be done because the software does not support 128 bit block addressing.
For this reason my recommendation to VM Ware is to create a 128 bit API, possibly a plugin system, so that in the future a driver/plug in can be written to make VM Ware work with 128 bit block addressing so it can read/write/find/store more data on futuristics harddisk.
To test this API, random data can be generated for specific offsets. The randseed can be set to the offset/block number to allows generate the same data for verification purposes for example.
This plug-in should be build into VM Ware sooner then later.
Another one of my concerns is NTFS of Microsoft Windows. It is as far as I know 64 bit limited.
My drives are already 4 TB, if I add them up could be as much as 10 TB or even 16 TB.
That means at least 40 bits, or 44 bits or so.
So NTFS is 20 bits away before it runs into limitations.
Harddisks may grow at a different rate than Moore's Law.
However there is a new kid in town "SSD" and such and they are created with transistors and their growth rate may be much higher than harddisks the coming years.
I don't know exact data but I will use both based on my own experience:
1986 ? C64, 64 KB of data on floppy
1992 ? MS-DOS/PC 80486 2.0 MB on floppy, Seagate, Capacity: 120 MB on harddisk
1996 ? Pentium 166, Quantum Fireball 3.5 TM, Capacity: 2 GB on harddisk.
1999 ? Pentium III 450 MHZ, Harddisk: 16 GB (for speed dumb) and later 120 GB.(2004)
2006 DreamPC AMD X2 3800+ Harddisks: 512 GB (2006) and, 2 TB (2011) 2 TB (2019). 2 TB (2020)
Now: 2020, 4 TB on usb mass storage device.
So some significant stagnation on harddisk front over last 14 years.
However there is also "speak" of 100 TB SSD coming from Samsung, 2018 or so..
Going to put this roughly in an ASCII chart
100 TB
10 TB AMD X2 AMD X2
1 TB AMD X2
100 GB PIII
10 GB PIII
1 GB P166
100 MB 80486
10 MB
1 MB FLOPPY
100 KB C64
1985 - 1990 - 1995 - 2000 - 2005 - 2010 - 2015 - 2020
I think from this chart it can be seen that harddisk capacity is slowing down.
While flash/sd/ssd capacity is not shown in this chart it is probably ramping up.
One of the reasons of the slow down of harddisk capacity might also have to do with BIOS limitations of old systems. I purchased a 2 TB harddisk in 2020, just so I could fit it into DreamPC/AMD X2 3800+ if I need that capacity to maybe re-install windows 7 x64 edition with platform update. So far I have not done that yet, but did it install it on USB stick to see what it would be like and it's quite pleasing to do that. Geforce Now also works on it which is quite weird to game on the cloud.
Anyway it's hard to say what the exact growth rate is there are probably two;
Harddisk growth rate. It think the chart does show quite nicely it's roughly 10x each 5 years.
SSD growth rate. For now my guess is this will follow Moore's Law. Roughly double capacity each 1.5 years.
So let's calculate when NTFS will run out of bits for consumers/home users like me !
It's either the SSD rate which would mean 20x1.5 = 25 years.
or
The harddisk rate which would mean 20 bits left which is 1000x1000.
So log(1.000.000) = 6 x 5 = 30 years.
So either way in roughly 30 years NTFS will not be sufficient anymore.
CPU/Software/Compiler/Assembler/Linker/Debugger/Drivers/Operating System/GUI/File System/BIOS/EUFI/Protocols/Sata?
A lot of stuff will need to change to be able to support 128 bit harddisks if growth of capacity continues.
Also hundreds of years from now space will become very important for IT to store capacity in space =D
And then thousands of years from now we will be dumping computers in space that are not dragged along by the sun and we will communicate with them via quantum communications =D
So some investments into space elevator, space ships and space technology will also become important for IT sector =D
I feel slightly at uneasy that Windows 10 does not yet have a NTFS 128 bit file system.
Bye,
Skybuck.