There must be a functional difference between these two strategies:

I have a cache pool (mircache) that copies to the array. There are two shares on mircache: "downloads" and "sorted".

Attempting the command:

ln /mnt/mircache/downloads/archive.7z /mnt/mircache/sorted/1234.7z

gives the error "Invalid cross-device link".

However linking the file to the same share and then copying the hard link to "sorted" works:

ln /mnt/mircache/downloads/archive.7z /mnt/mircache/downloads/1234.7z
mv /mnt/mircache/downloads/1234.7z /mnt/mircache/sorted/

How do these differ, and why does the first command fail on the same pool?

Edited December 30, 2025Dec 30 by XCVB
clarity

You can't hardlink across different filsystems/volumes/shares. Downloads and sorted are two different shares. It need to be within the same share.

On 12/30/2025 at 6:22 AM, strike said:

You can't hardlink across different filsystems/volumes/shares. Downloads and sorted are two different shares. It need to be within the same share.

Okay, my understanding is shares were fine, filesystems and volumes were not.

So how does moving the hardlink afterwards differ, and why does it work? It links correctly and does not consume more storage space than the hardlink itself.

Edited December 31, 2025Dec 31 by XCVB

12 minutes ago, XCVB said:

So how does moving the hardlink afterwards differ, and why does it work? It links correctly

Are you sure it's really hardlinked? Can you do this command and post the output

ls -al /mnt/mircache/sorted/

Assuming you have the 1234.7z there still, or any other files you have tried to hardlink