5 ms·

Without a limit, you could design a storage system using empty files on google drive with limitless storage potential.

• jjnoakes 4y ago
  Why couldn't Google just count the file name length and perhaps a small constant metadata size against your quota?
  • acdha 4y ago
    That is a limit. It’s a different one but it tacitly accepts that some check is needed.
    • aflag 4y ago
      They already had a total size limit. The complaint is that they introduced a new one without really telling anyone.
    • Kwpolska 4y ago
      Not a limit as small as Google set, and not a limit added overnight without any previous announcement or grace period. If you want to limit storing data in names of blank files, you could say “blank files, files smaller than 1024 bytes, and folders are counted as 1024 bytes for quota purposes”. A minimum billable size seems fair to me, and there is prior art (e.g. AWS S3 has minimum sizes for some storage classes).
• dwaite 4y ago
  on real filesystems, directories are effectively files and take up space. I see no reason for them not to have zero byte files take from the storage limits due to metadata.