Re: [PATCH] CIFS: Decrease reconnection delay when switching nics

["Björn JACKE" <bj@SerNet.DE>]

On 2013-02-28 at 07:26 -0800 Jeff Layton sent off:
> NTFS doesn't support sparse files, so the OS has to zero-fill up to the
> point where you're writing. That can take a looooong time on slow
> storage (minutes even).

but you are talking about FAT here, right? NTFS does support sparse files if
the sparse bit has been explicitly been set on it. Bit even if the sparse bit
is not set filling a file with zeros by writing after a seek long beyond the
end of the file is very fast because NTFS supports that feature what Unix
filesystems like xfs call extents.

If writing beyond the end of a file is really slow via cifs vfs in the test
case against a ntfs volume then I wonder if that operation is being really done
optimally over the wire. ntfs really isn't that bad with handling this kind of
files.

Cheers
Björn