How to check if hardlinks are working
You've followed the guide step by step but still want to check if hardlinks are working, or someone on the Sonarr/Radarr support team asked you to check if your files are hardlinked?
You can use 3 options to check if you got working hardlinks.
All methods require you to login to your terminal with PuTTY or similar software.
Warning
You can't create hard links for directories 
You can't cross file systems
Usenet
If you use usenet these examples won't work because you make use of instant moves/atomic moves and not hardlinks.
Still want to test if it works ?
Test a import of a 4k remux (or any other big file and you should notice it's almost instant) and not a slower and more I/O intensive copy + delete.
Method 1: Using ls
This is the easiest to check in my opinion.
In your terminal cd to your download location and run ls -al or type ls -al /path/to/your/download/location/
You will get a listing of all your files and on the left side you will see a couple of numbers, every file with a number above 1 are hardlinks.
- Red rectangle - Not Hardlinked
- Green rectangle - Hardlinks
- Blue rectangle - Folders/Directories you will need to go in to them to check if the files are hardlinked.
Method 2: Using stat
This way requires a bit more work.
-
In the terminal type:
stat /path/to/your/download/location/file.mkv -
In the terminal type:
stat /path/to/your/media/location/file.mkv
You will get 2 results you can use to compare several things.
- Links: Everything above 1 means it's a hardlink
- Inode: if the numbers match you know the files are hardlinked
Method 3: Using Inode copies
- In your terminal
cdto your download location and runls -i file.mkvor typels -i /path/to/your/download/location/file.mkv
This will reveal the inode of your file on the left side of the file.
- In your terminal type:
find /mnt/user/data/ -inum ###orfind . -inum ###if you're in your root folder.
### = Your inode number on the left of the file you found.
It will list all files linked with the same inode number.