How to Copy Files

Explore an innovative approach to file cloning in this 30-minute conference talk from FAST '20. Dive into the concept of "nimble clones" in BetrFS, an open-source file system that addresses long-standing challenges in creating efficient logical copies of files and directories. Learn about the four key performance goals for ideal clone implementation and how BetrFS achieves them through a write-optimized key-value store and a novel "copy-on-abundant-write" policy. Discover how this approach outperforms traditional copy methods, significantly improving performance for applications like container creation. Gain insights into the technical details of BetrFS's cloning mechanism and its impact on spatial locality, write efficiency, and overall system performance.