Back In Time

Which prerequisites to use hard-links to save space?

Asked by Thierry B.

Hi

It would be nice to have a clea summary of needed prerequisites to use hard links to save backuyp spaces . I do not know well what is needed. A chart like this would be nice in the documentation :

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| File system | Direct Access | NFS | SAMBA | SSH | FTP |
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| ext* | Yes | Yes? | No? | ? | ? |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| fat32 | No | No | No? | ? | ? |
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| NTFS | No? | No | No | ? | ? |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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David Paige (david-paige) said : 		#1

I'll take a stab at this. The ftp and ssh are not controlled by the file system. That is controlled by the operating system (either another PC, a NAS, etc.) NFS and Samba as well as separate and distinct from the underlying file system format.

NTFS can make hard links at both the file and the directory level. I don't know if it will translate directly into an ext2 or ext3 file system.

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Thierry B. (thierrybo2) said : 		#2

Ok,

so does this mean if I rsync/backintime to an ftp server that is saving file to an ext4 filesystem, hard links will not work?

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David Paige (david-paige) said : 		#3

I haven't tried this, but an ext4 file system should not have any problems handling hard links. Hopefully someone will come along and confirm this.

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Best Dan (danleweb) said : 		#4

Direct access:

Any unix filesystems handle hardlink: ext*, xfs, raiserfr*, btrfs, ufs, zfs ...
On windows NTFS support them but I don't recommend them because or access right that don't match exactly unix rights.

Remote access:

This depends on the "real file system" (on the host) and "remote file system" (as presented by the host) . Both need to support them.
I think samba has some extension to better support unix features (if accessed from a unix system).
NFS should work better since it was designed for unix systems (and I think it is faster).
FTP ... I don't know if it support them.

Reagards,
Dan

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Thierry B. (thierrybo2) said : 		#5

Thanks, so this coulb sumed up as this ?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| File system | Direct Access | NFS | SAMBA | SSH | FTP ___|
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| ext* ______| Yes __________| Yes | No _____| ? __| ? ______|
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| fat32 _____| No __________| No | No _____| No _| No ____|
 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| NTFS _____| No __________| No _| No ____| No__| No ____|
 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Thierry B. (thierrybo2) said : 		#6

Thanks Dan, that solved my question.