extended is not the same as unlimited :-)
We're moving from 32-bit block numbers to 40-bit block numbers, which means the max size for a database with 8k block size is 8PB. Obviously, those are huge amounts of data, and we strongly recommend against just stashing that all in a single IRIS.DAT file,, if your file system permits such files at all. Multivolume database support already helps you spread data across multiple physical files (opaquely), and the new Table Partitioning support (experimental in 2026.1) helps you spread table data across multiple databases.
If you wonder why we stuck with 40 bit numbers rather than a power of 2: we were able to reuse a few available bits in the current block header format, meaning you can transparently and instantly upgrade to this Extended Database Format without having to migrate your almost-32TB database to a new block header format. And 8PB is quite large already...
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