Fast Clone on Linux with other filesystems?

[NTmatter]

Just curious about the new XFS fast clone functionality -- it looks like it's using the native reflink functionality when an XFS volume supports it. Several other filesystems support the standardized call as well, notably BTRFS and OCFS2.

Will Veeam use reflink if it's available, or is it tied to XFS-only? I'm thinking it might be interesting to set up a few repositories backed by an OCFS2 cluster, as it would reduce wasted space in my environment. Fast Clone support would result in even more savings.

[HannesK]

Hello,
there are no plans to support other file systems at the moment.

We do not trust BTRFS as backup target at this time, it really needs to mature (this is based on our own experience with supporting one in Veeam Agent for Linux). And OCFS2 seems to be not really a "standard" file system (not commonly used) .

Best regards,
Hannes

[NTmatter]

Thanks. I'm aware they're unsupported, however I was just curious if they worked as they all exposed the same standard reflink interface.

I guess I'll have to put a lab together to see how things go

[tsightler]

We actually check specifically for XFS filesystem and that it's been formatted with the required options. You might be able to get really creative and fake it (I mean, a little alias/chroot magic and you can make BTRFS report to Veeam that it's XFS), but I wouldn't recommend it and it sure wouldn't be supported.

[NTmatter]

That sounds like a whole lot of fun, actually Definitely worth not doing in Production.