I looked into symlinks, and found that ext3 supports fast symlinks up to 60 characters, where the symlink path is stored in the directory entry, and therefore takes no filesystem space. Since the target name is a standardized hash-name path, this will always be the case. So, symlinks take up no more space than hard links, and the overhead of resolving the symlink is minimal. The only hard part is keeping track of unused pool files.
I'm not sure how other filesystems handle symlinks. I suspect that trying to use a Windows file system will give lower performance in any case, but someone might want to give the idea a try if they are working where a Windows storage system is already in place, or Windows is mandated by misguided administrators. Joe Joe Krahn wrote: > Has anyone considered using symlinks to manage the pool files instead of > hard links? It would be less efficient, but it would make backups of the > backup data easier, and it provides more flexibility for the data > filesystem, and means not having to consider hardlink count limits. > Maybe the extra data usage is worth it for some users. It should be > fairly easy to implement, other than managing deletion of unused pool files. > > Joe Krahn > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft > Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. > http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ > _______________________________________________ > BackupPC-devel mailing list > BackupPC-devel@lists.sourceforge.net > List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-devel > Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net > Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2008. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ BackupPC-devel mailing list BackupPC-devel@lists.sourceforge.net List: https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-devel Wiki: http://backuppc.wiki.sourceforge.net Project: http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
