2 ms·
While the idea of data-deduplication does apply everywhere, this specifically depends on the APFS CoW data feature, so it's not applicable outside of macOS (or
by AceJohnny2 2mo ago
While the idea of data-deduplication does apply everywhere, this specifically depends on the APFS CoW data feature, so it's not applicable outside of macOS (or APFS Volumes)
- rbanffy 2mo agoThe same concepts exist in ZFS, BtrFS and, IIRC, XFS.
- rf15 2mo agoalso, worst case you can do this with link features? Which is basically every system under the sun.
- msh 2mo agobut link is dangerous, as a edit made to one file will then be made to all copies. For example, If I have two files /home/m/todo.txt and /home/m/backup2025/todo.txt that are identical and you then replace /home/m/todo.txt with a link to /home/m/backup2025/todo.txt and I later edit /home/m/todo.txt then backup copy would also be updated. With apfs clones the backup would not be modified when I updated the file.
- rbanffy 2mo agoLink might be desirable for your e-book or mp3 collections. Or .iso images, MAME ROMs, and other files that are unlikely to be changed.
- AceJohnny2 2mo agoLinks are not CoW