On my computer I create a hard link
mklink /h git-link.exe git.exe
Hardlink created for git-link.exe <<===>> git.exe
Now they both take up space
2012-04-17 12:14 AM 6,905,039 git-link.exe
2012-04-17 12:14 AM 6,905,039 git.exe
What's the point of this? Why not just make a copy?
Best Answer
When you create a hardlink, you are creating two separate file system entries pointing to the same physical data on the disk.
When you do a dir, it displays the size of the data being stored at the location the file system entry is pointing at.
So if you create 100 hard links to a single file, they will all report the same size - they are reporting the size of the data stored. This does not mean that the hardlinks take up this space - in fact they do not. A hard link takes up very little space.