The standard cp since coreutils 7.6 supports the --reflink option. This e.g. will copy a file with CoW if possible, but fallback to a standard copy if not: c

The standard cp since coreutils 7.6 supports the --reflink option. This e.g. will copy a file with CoW if possible, but fallback to a standard copy if not: cp --reflink=auto src dst I did a quick summary of how reflinks relate to symlinks and hardlinks at http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/unix_links.html http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/unix_links.html