Large File Support

Large File Support (English support for large files ) is a characteristic of operating systems or file systems to be able to open and edit very large files. Often, the system used is before this limit, in some (older ) versions of Linux, these are eg 2 GiB in FAT32 or 4 GiB. Large databases on servers, image editing or video editing but often require large files ( engl. large files ), which are much more extensive, so that such an application of a small size limit on files should not be affected.

The problem lies with the still very popular 32 -bit operating systems in the size limit of integer numbers. A 32 -bit integer can only values ​​up to 2 GiB ( with sign) or 4 GiB represent ( unsigned ). To support very large files, therefore, a new data type and associated operating system functions must be implemented in 32 -bit programs, which makes rewriting old programs required. Older versions and in particular unmaintained programs can only handle files with a maximum size of 2 or 4 GiB, therefore, even with the existence of a Large File Support.