Hard links are more restrictive than symbolic links, as follows:
- The target of the link must exist.
- Hard links are generally not allowed on directories.
- Hard links are not allowed to cross partitions or volumes. Therefore, they cannot exist across file systems.
- A hard link looks, and behaves, like a regular file, so they can be hard to find.
- A hard link is, for all intents and purposes, the same entity as the original file. They have the same file permissions, time stamps, and so on. All attributes are identical.
