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+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+Blocks
+------
+
+ext4 allocates storage space in units of “blocks”. A block is a group of
+sectors between 1KiB and 64KiB, and the number of sectors must be an
+integral power of 2. Blocks are in turn grouped into larger units called
+block groups. Block size is specified at mkfs time and typically is
+4KiB. You may experience mounting problems if block size is greater than
+page size (i.e. 64KiB blocks on a i386 which only has 4KiB memory
+pages). By default a filesystem can contain 2^32 blocks; if the '64bit'
+feature is enabled, then a filesystem can have 2^64 blocks. The location
+of structures is stored in terms of the block number the structure lives
+in and not the absolute offset on disk.
+
+For 32-bit filesystems, limits are as follows:
+
+.. list-table::
+   :widths: 1 1 1 1 1
+   :header-rows: 1
+
+   * - Item
+     - 1KiB
+     - 2KiB
+     - 4KiB
+     - 64KiB
+   * - Blocks
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+   * - Inodes
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+   * - File System Size
+     - 4TiB
+     - 8TiB
+     - 16TiB
+     - 256PiB
+   * - Blocks Per Block Group
+     - 8,192
+     - 16,384
+     - 32,768
+     - 524,288
+   * - Inodes Per Block Group
+     - 8,192
+     - 16,384
+     - 32,768
+     - 524,288
+   * - Block Group Size
+     - 8MiB
+     - 32MiB
+     - 128MiB
+     - 32GiB
+   * - Blocks Per File, Extents
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+   * - Blocks Per File, Block Maps
+     - 16,843,020
+     - 134,480,396
+     - 1,074,791,436
+     - 4,398,314,962,956 (really 2^32 due to field size limitations)
+   * - File Size, Extents
+     - 4TiB
+     - 8TiB
+     - 16TiB
+     - 256TiB
+   * - File Size, Block Maps
+     - 16GiB
+     - 256GiB
+     - 4TiB
+     - 256TiB
+
+For 64-bit filesystems, limits are as follows:
+
+.. list-table::
+   :widths: 1 1 1 1 1
+   :header-rows: 1
+
+   * - Item
+     - 1KiB
+     - 2KiB
+     - 4KiB
+     - 64KiB
+   * - Blocks
+     - 2^64
+     - 2^64
+     - 2^64
+     - 2^64
+   * - Inodes
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+   * - File System Size
+     - 16ZiB
+     - 32ZiB
+     - 64ZiB
+     - 1YiB
+   * - Blocks Per Block Group
+     - 8,192
+     - 16,384
+     - 32,768
+     - 524,288
+   * - Inodes Per Block Group
+     - 8,192
+     - 16,384
+     - 32,768
+     - 524,288
+   * - Block Group Size
+     - 8MiB
+     - 32MiB
+     - 128MiB
+     - 32GiB
+   * - Blocks Per File, Extents
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+     - 2^32
+   * - Blocks Per File, Block Maps
+     - 16,843,020
+     - 134,480,396
+     - 1,074,791,436
+     - 4,398,314,962,956 (really 2^32 due to field size limitations)
+   * - File Size, Extents
+     - 4TiB
+     - 8TiB
+     - 16TiB
+     - 256TiB
+   * - File Size, Block Maps
+     - 16GiB
+     - 256GiB
+     - 4TiB
+     - 256TiB
+
+Note: Files not using extents (i.e. files using block maps) must be
+placed within the first 2^32 blocks of a filesystem. Files with extents
+must be placed within the first 2^48 blocks of a filesystem. It's not
+clear what happens with larger filesystems.