Block devices sda, sdb, sdc. What comes after sdz?
My block devices are named sda
, sdb
and so on.
What happens when I get to sdz
? Is the next one going to be called sdaa
?
Yes. The kernel will continue to assign names in the form of sdaa
, sdab
and so on. There may be a bug preventing it from going beyond sdzzz
, but in theory, it's going to continue forever (that is up to 18278 due to data type limitations).
my thanks to Rinzwind for providing the links
After sda
➡sdz
comes sdaa
➡sdaz
, etc.
The first link in the accepted answer (from 2011) is broken. Here is a new link (also from 2011) containing a good write-up: How are Linux drives named beyond drive 26?.
To summarize the main point in the link (slightly revised and reformatted):
Drive # - Name
1 - sda
26 - sdz
27 - sdaa
28 - sdab
52 - sdaz
53 - sdba
54 - sdbb
702 - sdzz
703 - sdaaa
704 - sdaab
18278 - sdzzz
Needless to say Linux is well positioned for expansion of drives.