This question was previously asked in stack overflow but the good folks there have recommended that i try the community over here instead.

I am researching on sparse files with regards to various filesystems and am trying to find something concrete that states that sparse files is supported by Network File Systems (NFS) or Server Message Block (SMB).

I understand that SMB is widely used in Windows and that according to this [entry](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/openspecification/archive/2010/11/05/notes-on-sparse-files-and-file-sharing.aspx), an SMB server can support sparse file even if the underlying file system does not. However, if i am right, the file system that does not support sparse files would just fill the 'holes' with zeroes and this could lead to a performance problem.

With regards to NFS, i have not been able to find out anything about using NFS supporting sparse files.

Hence, my questions is,

Are sparse files supported in NFS and SMB ?