> On 24 Sep 2016, at 17:52, Alex Bligh <a...@alex.org.uk> wrote: > > In *your* use-case holes may be desirable. However in the general case, you > cannot assume a server supports holes. Optional support for holes isn't even > in the mainline spec yet (AFAIR).
You should also be aware that the minimum granularity for writes (currently 1 byte in the spec, but the blocksize extension allows for larger) may be smaller than the minimum granularity for holes, which may depend on the underlying filing system. A hole is in essence merely an optimised way of storing zeroes. And the trim operation says 'I'm not worried about this data any more - so zero it if you like'. -- Alex Bligh