11-04-2014
If possible I would pick option 2, since that allows you to use the new ext4 filesystem, which supports online defragmentation. That can be important for virtual machines. But just copying the files has one problem.
There's very little "magic" about UNIX/Linux filesystems which won't be immaculately duplicated with a proper backup/restore, but sparse files is one of them. They will "explode" in size from all their sparse parts suddenly not being sparse anymore. Are your virtual machine disk images stored as sparse files? An easy way to check is to compare its size in ls -lh filename with its size in du -hs filename... A sparse file could be many gigabytes smaller according to du than ls since ls only knows its length.
Sparse files is also one of the times you'd really want ext4, since their random-ish patterns of use and writing can fragment worse than other files.
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
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DMC(1) DMC(1)
NAME
dmc - controls the Disk Mount Conditioner
SYNOPSIS
dmc start mount [profile-name|profile-index [-boot]]
dmc stop mount
dmc status mount [-json]
dmc show profile-name|profile-index
dmc list
dmc select mount profile-name|profile-index
dmc configure mount type access-time read-throughput write-throughput [ioqueue-depth maxreadcnt maxwritecnt segreadcnt segwritecnt]
dmc help | -h
DESCRIPTION
dmc(1) configures the Disk Mount Conditioner. The Disk Mount Conditioner is a kernel provided service that can degrade the disk I/O being
issued to specific mount points, providing the illusion that the I/O is executing on a slower device. It can also cause the conditioned
mount point to advertise itself as a different device type, e.g. the disk type of an SSD could be set to an HDD. This behavior consequently
changes various parameters such as read-ahead settings, disk I/O throttling, etc., which normally have different behavior depending on the
underlying device type.
COMMANDS
Common command parameters:
o mount - the mount point to be used in the command
o profile-name - the name of a profile as shown in dmc list
o profile-index - the index of a profile as shown in dmc list
dmc start mount [profile-name|profile-index [-boot]]
Start the Disk Mount Conditioner on the given mount point with the current settings (from dmc status) or the given profile, if pro-
vided. Optionally configure the profile to remain enabled across reboots, if -boot is supplied.
dmc stop mount
Disable the Disk Mount Conditioner on the given mount point. Also disables any settings that persist across reboot via the -boot flag
provided to dmc start, if any.
dmc status mount [-json]
Display the current settings (including on/off state), optionally as JSON
dmc show profile-name|profile-index
Display the settings of the given profile
dmc list
Display all profile names and indices
dmc select mount profile-name|profile-index
Choose a different profile for the given mount point without enabling or disabling the Disk Mount Conditioner
dmc configure mount type access-time read-throughput write-throughput [ioqueue-depth maxreadcnt maxwritecnt segreadcnt segwritecnt]
Select custom parameters for the given mount point rather than using the settings provided by a default profile.
See dmc list for example parameter settings for various disk presets.
o type - 'SSD' or 'HDD'. The type determines how various system behaviors like disk I/O throttling and read-ahead algorithms affect the
issued I/O. Additionally, choosing 'HDD' will attempt to simulate seek times, including drive spin-up from idle.
o access-time - latency in microseconds for a single I/O. For SSD types this latency is applied exactly as specified to all I/O. For HDD
types, the latency scales based on a simulated seek time (thus making the access-time the maximum latency or seek penalty).
o read-throughput - integer specifying megabytes-per-second maximum throughput for disk reads
o write-throughput - integer specifying megabytes-per-second maxmimu throughput for disk writes
o ioqueue-depth - maximum number of commands that a device can accept
o maxreadcnt - maximum byte count per read
o maxwritecnt - maximum byte count per write
o segreadcnt - maximum physically disjoint segments processed per read
o segwritecnt - maximum physically disjoint segments processed per write
dmc help | -h
Display help text
EXAMPLES
dmc start / '5400 HDD'
Turn on the Disk Mount Conditioner for the boot volume, acting like a 5400 RPM hard drive.
dmc configure /Volumes/ExtDisk SSD 100 100 50
Configure an external disk to use custom parameters to degrade performance as if it were a slow SSD with 100 microsecond latencies,
100MB/s read throughput, and 50MB/s write throughput.
IMPORTANT
The Disk Mount Conditioner is not a 'simulator'. It can only degrade (or 'condition') the I/O such that a faster disk device behaves like a
slower device, not vice-versa. For example, a 5400 RPM hard drive cannot be conditioned to act like a SSD that is capable of a higher
throughput than the theoretical limitations of the hard disk.
In addition to running dmc stop, rebooting is also a sufficient way to clear any existing settings and disable Disk Mount Conditioner on
all mount points (unless started with -boot).
SEE ALSO
nlc(1)
January 2018 DMC(1)