Does macOS Sierra support Server Side Copy via SMB and/or AFP?
I'm using FreeNAS and it has the option to share data using SMB or AFP. Since I recently learned that AFP is being deprecated, I'm hesitant to use AFP but I'v read that AFP supports Server Side Copy and SMB on Mac does not.
I want to confirm both points with the Ask Different crowd:
- Does macOS Sierra connecting to a FreeNAS server via AFP support Server Side Copy?
- Does macOS Sierra connecting to a FreeNAS server via SMB support Server Side Copy?
Based on release notes, FreeNAS supports Samba 4.1.4 (SMB3), and thus supports Server-Side Copy when connect with compatible clients.
Solution 1:
Unfortunately, the source code of the AFP driver is not free software, so it's difficult to give a definitive answer on that. However, it appears that Netatalk supports copyfile, so it's likely that the answer to that question is yes.
-
If you look at the source code of the latest version of the macOS smbfs driver, you can see that it does implement the copyfile operation (see smbfs_vnop_copyfile)
According to the release notes, OS X did that since ca. 2013:
8) Added Server Side Copies (OS X SMB Client <-> OS X/Windows SMB File Server)
Whether that actually gets used with FreeNAS, I cannot tell - I have no access to a FreeNAS system.