Really similar to dvc import ignores cache and downloads from remote · Issue #9385 · iterative/dvc · GitHub but I think that should be fixed in 3.0 - right ?
So strange. It does the symlinks at the end but first “downloads” the data. I also have an external cache.
ok … missed that it got re-opened import: local cache is ignored when importing data that already exist in cache · Issue #10255 · iterative/dvc · GitHub . So don’t feel so alone anymore.