diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/HardLink.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/HardLink.java
index 1624c5d395aec..29e9e8aa17b77 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/HardLink.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/HardLink.java
@@ -23,6 +23,8 @@
 import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.StringReader;
+import java.nio.file.FileStore;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
 
 import org.apache.hadoop.io.IOUtils;
 import org.apache.hadoop.util.Shell;
@@ -50,6 +52,10 @@ public class HardLink {
   private static HardLinkCommandGetter getHardLinkCommand;
   
   public final LinkStats linkStats; //not static
+
+  private static final String FileAttributeView = "unix";
+
+  private static final String FileAttribute = "unix:nlink";
   
   //initialize the command "getters" statically, so can use their 
   //methods without instantiating the HardLink object
@@ -203,6 +209,15 @@ public static void createHardLinkMult(File parentDir, String[] fileBaseNames,
                  parentDir.toPath().resolve(name));
     }
   }
+  @VisibleForTesting
+  static boolean supportsHardLink(File f) {
+    try {
+      FileStore store = Files.getFileStore(f.toPath());
+      return store.supportsFileAttributeView(FileAttributeView);
+    } catch (IOException e) {
+      return false;
+    }
+  }
 
    /**
    * Retrieves the number of links to the specified file.
@@ -220,6 +235,10 @@ public static int getLinkCount(File fileName) throws IOException {
       throw new FileNotFoundException(fileName + " not found.");
     }
 
+    if (supportsHardLink(fileName)) {
+      return (int) Files.getAttribute(fileName.toPath(), FileAttribute);
+    }
+
     // construct and execute shell command
     String[] cmd = getHardLinkCommand.linkCount(fileName);
     String inpMsg = null;
diff --git a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestHardLink.java b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestHardLink.java
index b08e15ca11090..b66825f7b10a7 100644
--- a/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestHardLink.java
+++ b/hadoop-common-project/hadoop-common/src/test/java/org/apache/hadoop/fs/TestHardLink.java
@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@
 import java.io.FileReader;
 import java.io.FileWriter;
 import java.io.IOException;
+import java.nio.file.FileStore;
+import java.nio.file.Files;
 import java.util.Arrays;
 
 import org.apache.hadoop.test.GenericTestUtils;
@@ -204,6 +206,8 @@ private String fetchFileContents(File file)
     char[] result = Arrays.copyOf(buf, cnt);
     return new String(result);
   }
+
+
   
   /**
    * Sanity check the simplest case of HardLink.getLinkCount()
@@ -219,6 +223,16 @@ public void testGetLinkCount() throws IOException {
     assertEquals(1, getLinkCount(x3));
   }
 
+  @Test
+    public void testGetLinkCountFromFileAttribute() throws IOException {
+    assertTrue(supportsHardLink(x1));
+    assertEquals(1, getLinkCount(x1));
+    assertTrue(supportsHardLink(x2));
+    assertEquals(1, getLinkCount(x2));
+    assertTrue(supportsHardLink(x3));
+    assertEquals(1, getLinkCount(x3));
+    }
+
   /**
    * Test the single-file method HardLink.createHardLink().
    * Also tests getLinkCount() with values greater than one.