[AnotherGoodName]

Complexity? You mmap it in and then read the multi terrabyte file as if it was an array.

The opposite with actual file io sucks in terms of complexity. I get that you can write bespoke code that performs better but mmap is a one liner to turn a file into an array.

[Dwedit]

Need to handle the exceptions/signals every time a disk read fails. With classic IO, you know when the read will happen. But with memory-mapped files, the exception can happen at any time you are reading from the memory range.

As for why disk reads fail, yes that's a thing. Less common on internal storage (bad sectors), but more common on removable USB devices or Network drives (especially on wifi).

[Sesse__]

Multi-terabyte? Better hope you have lots of spare RAM for all those page structures the kernel has to keep.