5.2 I understand that the maximum capacity of any dataset is related to database block size and the maximum number of blocks TurboIMAGE allows. But what is the maximum number of blocks? And is there any hope this will be increased in the future?
From Jerry Fochtman:
The limit currently is 2**24 - 1, or 16,777,215 blocks with a maximum block size of 2560.
A future enhancement to TurboIMAGE will allow a database to use the actual record number for the pointer instead of the current block/entry format. Datasets with large entry sizes compared to the maximum block size of 2560 currently have their maximum capacities severely constrained by the maximum number of blocks.
As I understand it, users will be able to have databases on the same system with different pointer formats. However, within an individual database, it must be all one format or the other. It will not be possible to have one dataset with pointers in one format, and another dataset with pointers in the other format.
Furthermore, it will be necessary for existing databases to go through a conversion process in order to change from one format to the other and gain the ability to achieve larger capacities.