Appendix F
File Sizes

Your data reduction strategy will be more effective if you have an idea of how big the data and map file sizes will be on disk. Also, it will help you estimate just how many files you can backup to tape. In this appendix, we will discuss file sizes in bytes, which are 8 bits in size, rather than “blocks,” which can vary in size between different computers. Inside AIPS, the definition of “byte” is perverted, but all systems now use a 1024-byte (8192 bit) “block.”

 F.1 Visibility (uv) data sets
  F.1.1 uv database sizes
  F.1.2 Compressed format for uv data
 F.2 Image files
 F.3 Extension files
 F.4 Storing data on tape
  F.4.1 DAT and Exabyte tapes
 F.5 Very large data sets
 F.6 Additional recipes