UUIDs on drives

[Rashkae]

Derek Broughton wrote:
> Smoot Carl-Mitchell wrote:
> 
>> On Thu, 2008-08-14 at 12:27 -0300, Derek Broughton wrote:
>>
>>> When you find some duplication, _then_ object.  I don't believe you're
>>> ever
>>> going to find any, even with a 4-byte vfat UUID.   2**128 is still a very
>>> big number.
>> A quick clarification here.  With a 4 byte number, there is a 1 in 2**32
>> (about 1 in 4 billion) chance of duplicating a UUID.  It is not 1 chance
>> in 2**128 which is for a 128 bit number.
> 
> oops. :-)
> 
> 2**32 is _still_ a very big number.  There are almost certainly not 4
> billion vfat filesystems in the world today.

Every pre 2000 computer, every digital camera, every flash memory card.
 Probably most any embeded device that needs some quick and dirty
filesystem. There might not be 4 billion, but duplicate ID's are almost
a certainty.