DigitalVolcano Software Support

Making hard links is really handy, but I'd prefer making soft links. Freaky things about hard links: even though it's a holder pointing to other data, Windows reports it as using up as much data as what it points to. If you hard link one 50 MB file from two other places, the three files are reported by the OS as 150 MB total! And if you move a hard link, instead of still pointing to the original target, an new entire copy of the target is made where you move the hard link to (so that it's no longer a hard link).

Advantages of soft links: if you move a soft link, it still points to the original file. Also, Windows reports it as taking zero disk space. But for practical purposes (say, keeping one copy of a music collection in two places), soft links operate the same.

I'm wondering why you might prefer hard links? I'd suggest replacing the hard link creation with soft link creation.

> [hard link] Windows reports it as using up as much data as what it points to

True. (Though it is only an aberration if you will, to programs that don't know how to properly interpret hard links.)

> if you move a hard link, instead of still pointing to the original target, an new entire copy of the target is made where you move the hard link to (so that it's no longer a hard link).

Only when moved across volumes.

Neat. In File | Properties, a symbolic link is actually shown as a shortcut. (A hard link is not identified at all.)

I've always been partial to hard links, having never had a good grasp on symbolics.

My biggest concern with symbolic links would be that if I inadvertently removed the target rather then the link, I would actually loose the file. So I symlink my music directory M: to C:\MUSIC. One day I'm cleaning up, I notice I have the same music in two places. Not thinking, not realizing, I delete M:\ABBA\*. I go to C:\MUSIC only to find that ABBA is gone from there too?

To me, that is dangerous.

With a hard link deleting M:\ABBA\* still leaves the remaining node (hence an actual dir/file) at C:\MUSIC\ABBA\*.

http://www.maxi-pedia.com/difference+be ... +hard+link

http://www.maxi-pedia.com/mklink

In order to use the MKLINK command, you must run from an elevated prompt.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=310834#4

http://linuxgazette.tuwien.ac.at/105/pitcher.html

http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshel ... llext.html

Ooops. My music analogy doesn't quite work cause a hard link doesn't work across volumes.

My premise though does stand. (Just change things so we're talking about two locations on the same drive .)

I think it would be still great to have a soft link option, even with warnings on how to use it...

Necro-bump.

I also would like to see the option added to leave a file symlink instead of a hardlink. Strongly preferable to have the choice of using relative symlinks or absolute symlinks (with caveat that they should all be on the same volume).

This would be very useful for my file collection stored in CoveCube's Stablebit Drivepool volume. Stablebit unfortunately cannot support hardlinks.

Version 5 has Windows shortcuts, Symbolic (soft) links (relative and absolute) and hard-links.

DigitalVolcano wrote: ↑Thu Jul 23, 2020 10:58 am Version 5 has Windows shortcuts, Symbolic (soft) links (relative and absolute) and hard-links.

Can you please tell me how this specifically works?

I have an NTFS folder structure with many symlinks created with windows mklink instruction. I'm trying to get rid of all the valid symlinks that point to an existing file. I would think these symlinks would be tagged as duplicates of the file they point to, but it turns out since they are zero size, they are duplicates of each other and other zero size files.

Is it possible to use Dupliclate Cleaner 5 to get rid of the valid symlinks that point to existing files, but retain the broken symlinks since they are not seen as duplicates?

Thank you.