When the file system containing files of this specific type is low on space, it may lead to unpredictable situations. Besides, some disk management utilities may have issues with displaying free disk space. Over time, it may result in reduced performance. For example, if the original size of a sparse file (with all of its zero bytes) is 500 MB, and the quota limit for the user account where this sparse file is created is only 400 MB, such situation generates an error, even if the actual disk space occupied by this sparse file is only 50 MB.Īs to the hard disks where such data is stored, they are also subject to fragmentation, because the file system will write data to sparse files as and when necessary.
One more disadvantage is that you can’t copy or create a sparse file if its nominal size exceeds the amount of available free space (or quota restrictions applied to user accounts within the operating system). Users have to be careful when dealing with such files: a sparse file of a few megabytes may suddenly turn into a several-gigabyte monster when an application that doesn’t support this file type copies it into a directory. If a certain program cannot recognize or use such files, it will save a sparse file in its original – uncompressed – form, and there’s no advantage to talk about. However, the advantages of sparse files are limited to the applications that support them. Large sparse files are created relatively quickly because the file system doesn’t have to pre-allocate disk space for writing zeros. The space for storing data is allocated automatically as more and more information is written.
The biggest advantage of sparse files is that users can create very large files which take very little disk space. 🐧🍏 Sparse Files in Windows, Linux and MacOS, File Systems NTFS, REFS, Ext3, Ext4, BTRFS and APFS 🐧🍏 Pros and cons
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