MAXBUF sets the maximum allowable size for any single buffered I/O packet. Buffered I/O packets are allocated from the permanently resident nonpaged dynamic pool. The terminal, mailbox, and printer device drivers are examples of device drivers that perform buffered I/O. The number of bytes specified in the I/O request plus the size of a driver-dependent and function-dependent header area determine the required buffered I/O packet size. The size of the header area is a minimum of 16 bytes; there is no absolute upper limit. However, this header area is usually a few hundred bytes in size. The default value on Alpha and Integrity servers continues to be 8192. The maximum value of MAXBUF is 64000 bytes. MAXBUF is a DYNAMIC parameter.