Okay, now I am really really confused.
Here's a summary of my understanding; maybe someone can point out where I'm off track.
1. WAFL blocks are 4 KB 2. Max # of inodes is one per 4 K block 3. Each directory, even an empty one, fills at least one block 4. But, up to 128 empty directories can be sqeezed into one block
So based on 3, I will run out of room before running out of inodes, but based on 4, I will run out of inodes before running out of room. (Maybe the problem is I don't understand was a dirent is?)
Slightly off topic, can anyone suggest possibly a different, non-NetApp storage/file system that will give me a lot more inodes than I can get out of a filer? (Sorry Greg, but I need the best platform to meet the needs of the application, which might or might not be NetApp, so I have to ask.) The IO demands of this application are quite low, but storage and inode requirements are high. So any solution needs to be able to store large amounts of data and provide massive quantities of inodes, but doesn't need to be as fast as a filer.
Thanks, Tom