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I was reading Why is FAT32 limited to just under 2^28 clusters?

The answer to that question was that 4 bits were reserved "for future use".

What advantage is there in reserving these bits? Surely register size, storage, and bus width mean that 32 bits is just as efficient as 28 bits.

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HorusKol
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    We can only guess what "future use" might have been in mind at the time 4bits were set aside. Needles to say, sometimes things reserved for future use are never used. – Tyson Oct 07 '15 at 01:43
  • But what advantage is there in reserving them? Is there some efficiency in only handling 28 bits versus 32? – HorusKol Oct 07 '15 at 02:54
  • Doubtful, more likely they were reserved for some concept like clustering physical devices. – Tyson Oct 07 '15 at 03:06
  • @Tyson Probably related to ATA-1 (used 28-bit LBA). – Toothbrush Oct 07 '15 at 17:24

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