It sounds to me that is the best tool for the job.

The only gotcha I can think of is these clones either need to be deleted or split at some point , or they will just grow indefinitely with changes. Also, you are limited to 255 snapshots per volume and each flexclone is going to use a snapshot.

From: toasters-bounces@teaparty.net [mailto:toasters-bounces@teaparty.net] On Behalf Of Arnold de Leon
Sent: Friday, October 18, 2013 8:30 PM
To: toasters
Subject: Re: Slow copy of a directory full of files via an NFS client across a WAN

Summary

It appears that our best bet is to use the Netapp APIs and the "clone" commands.  This would be most efficient, the data never leaves the filer.   The "copies" don't take any additional space (except for the meta data) until they get modified.

We need to do a little more research and testing.

Thanks.