Abstract: Implementations are provided herein for the use of multiple threads in concurrently restriping files by maintaining multiple cursors for a single file. The cursors can be stored and tracked on disk in a mirrored data structure (“MDS”) extension block also referred to as a Cursor Extension Block. During a restripe operation, individual cursors stored in the delta-block portion of the MDS extension block will be updated using delta operations of a file system. The operating system kernel can maintain an in-memory version of the delta-block portion of the MDS extension block as well. The Cursor Extension Block associated with a file can store data representing the ending logical cluster number of the cursor, the current logical cluster number of the cursor, and a current cursor count for a file.

Abstract: Embodiments are directed towards cloning files in a distributed file system. In response to a request to create file clones, a file cloning application can be employed to generate file clones based on a source file. The file cloning application can generate a new inode for each new file clone and at least one new shadow store. Data blocks from the source file can be transferred to the shadow store. The transferred data blocks can be replaced with reference blocks that point to the data blocks transferred to the shadow store. Likewise, additional reference blocks pointing to data blocks in the shadow store can be generated for the new file clone inodes. Further, the shadow store can maintain reference counters that track the number of reference blocks pointing to each shadow store block. Also, file clones can be generated based on a point-in-time snapshot of the source file.