Embodiments described herein are related to cloning a volume in a file system. In some embodiments, a directory hard link is used to generate a clone of the root node of the volume. In certain embodiments, upon determining that a file or directory of the clone which comprises a hard link to an index node has been modified, a new object directory is generated beneath a root node of the volume. The index node may be added to the new object directory and one or more files and directories in the volume which link to the index node may be updated to contain symbolic links to the index node in the new object directory. In certain embodiments, a copy-on-write operation is performed in order to copy the file or directory and the new object directory to the clone.