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I'm wondering if is there any possibility to track changed blocks in linux with an ext3/ext4 filesystem (or a specific one supporting it).
I mean a feture like the Changed Block Tracking (CBT) available on ESX/ESXi systems. I refers to the feature discussed here:

What is Changed Block Tracking (CBT)
Understanding Changed Block Tracking on Virtual Machines.

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BTRFS, and ZFS provide mechanisms to backup "changed blocks" between snapshots.

Meaning you would take an initial FULL snapshot + backup of your volume. Then later you can create a second snapshot, and export the differences between the two; which are effectively the changed blocks only.

There are also changed-block solutions on the Ceph/Rados Clustered Storage solution. Where the RBD block devices can also be snapshotted, and diff'd.

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Hello Ron, for what is my understanding, following the approach you're suggesting, one should still compare two situations and build and identify the changed block (or file subset). For this reason, I don't see any advantage like comparing directly to files and find the differences (like rsync does). But maybe I misunderstood your solution. –  Eddie C. Mar 13 '14 at 12:21

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