Overview of Clones

A clone is a writable volume whose initial contents are the same as the dataset from which it was created. As with snapshots, creating a clone is nearly instantaneous and initially consumes no additional disk space. In addition, you can snapshot a clone.

Clones can only be created from a snapshot. When a snapshot is cloned, an implicit dependency is created between the clone and snapshot. Even though the clone is created somewhere else in the file system hierarchy, the original snapshot cannot be destroyed as long as the clone exists.

Because a clone initially shares all its disk space with the original snapshot, its used dist space value is initially zero. As changes are made to the clone, it uses more disk space. The used disk space of the original snapshot does not include the disk space consumed by the clone.