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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 :bangbang:

You can't cross file systems :bangbang:

Usenet

!!! note ""

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 an 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 our 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 into 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 hardlinked
Inode: if the numbers match, you know the files are hardlinked

Method 3: Using Inode copies

In your terminal cd to your download location and run ls -i file.mkv or type ls -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 ### or find . -inum ### if you're in your root folder.