Hi,
This is a question to wider audience (trying to democratize this a bit).
In a sesparate thread I describe how current “make snapshot visible to user” causes a circular reference problem and when used with samba shadow copy makes samba simply implode on it self due to exponential search ( actually it’s worst than exponential more of n! ).
BUT,
as it turns out even is not used with samba shadow copy this feature creates problem. If one would have a plethora of snapshots visible on a samba share (no shadow copy !!!) and would like to restore a file that was deleted at some unknown time, one would have to use a search program of choice ( windows explorer, far superior total commander, far far more superior midnigh commander … and osx 
) that would experience exactly the same problem, search would hit circular reference and essentially sit there for ever.
So, my suggestion are:
- remove it, and provide an option for snapshots “make available for samba shadow copy”. Additionally we could implement something where each snapshot available for samba would get a symlink in a separate folder but with unified naming for samba. Thanks do that use could implement a very efficient thinning process - keep 720 snapshots done every 5 minutes, 300 done every hour, 365 every day, 48 every month and so on !!! all of those could have symlinks that only include generation time so samba would accept unified format (without any prefix).
- make snapshot folder to act like a stand alone share that is read only and is available for samba for manual browsing for users
I’ve got no idea about implications of that for AFP protocol but I believe that having a circular references will not help.
Ideas ? I can deal with coding side of things so hey, open to suggestions 