Large File Storage [LWN.net]

Large File Storage

Posted Apr 27, 2015 16:00 UTC (Mon) by nye (guest, #51576)
In reply to: Large File Storage by nye
Parent article: What's coming in Git 2.4.0

>>Well, git-annex uses symlinks into a repo and broken links indicate files are missing. This obviously doesn't work on Windows
>Why not?

Oh wait, I think I've worked it out: It appears that, by default, only administrators can create symlinks on Windows for some crazy reason. This would therefore require either running as an administrator or changing the system security policy, neither of which make for an enjoyable user experience.

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Large File Storage

Posted Apr 27, 2015 20:27 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link] (1 responses)

Also only supported on NTFS (and exFAT?). My Android phone has the "brokenfs" option set and also has empty files sitting there, so maybe exFAT also doesn't support them.

Basically it just means that the Gallery app just shows lots of empty boxes after I sync.

Large File Storage

Posted Apr 28, 2015 9:59 UTC (Tue) by nye (guest, #51576) [Link]

>Also only supported on NTFS

Well I wouldn't say that's really a problem - I think NTFS is the only fs Windows can be installed on.

But anyway, surely the use of symlinks is really just an implementation detail that could be replaced with fake symlinks (Cygwin style, or whatever) easily enough if there was a will? I guess there must be bigger (design/conceptual) differences between git-annex and LFS.

The LFS web site certainly looks swanky; it must be good software.

Large File Storage

Posted Apr 27, 2015 20:28 UTC (Mon) by mathstuf (subscriber, #69389) [Link]

As for the administrator, I think it's their way to avoid symlink attacks since ~no applications are prepared for such things.