Efficient Snapshot

In addition to the allocation APIs, Metall provides a snapshot feature that stores only the difference from the previous snapshot point instead of duplicating the entire persistent heap by leveraging reflink.

With reflink, a copied file shares the same data blocks with the existing file; data blocks are copied only when they are modified (copy-on-write).

As reflink is relatively new, not all filesystems support it. Those that do include XFS, ZFS, Btrfs, and Apple File System (APFS) — we expect that more filesystems will implement this feature in the future.

In case reflink is not supported by the underlying filesystem, Metall automatically falls back to a regular copy.