Making all files sparse

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jpoc

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#298446 17-Jun-2022 19:22

Is there a file system that makes files sparse by default as they are created by an application that knows nothing about sparse files but which is basically writing files that can be sparse.

I don't mind which OS this would be using. All that I know of are systems that allow you to mark a file as sparse after it has been created.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2931199 17-Jun-2022 20:28

Have you looked at ZFS? I use it on FreeBSD and the on-disk size reported by ls -lsk is much smaller than the reported file size, even if you edit the last byte in an otherwise 0-filled file.

jpoc

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#2931209 17-Jun-2022 21:15

SirHumphreyAppleby:

Have you looked at ZFS? I use it on FreeBSD and the on-disk size reported by ls -lsk is much smaller than the reported file size, even if you edit the last byte in an otherwise 0-filled file.

Is that using sparse files or compression? I know that zfs can use sparse files as vdevs, I did't know that it could create sparse files.

SirHumphreyAppleby

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#2931268 18-Jun-2022 07:43

jpoc:

Is that using sparse files or compression?

My volumes do have lz4 compression enabled, but according to this post, ZFS doesn't store the null blocks on disk.