What is Apple Sparse Image Format (ASIF)? – Computerworld

Apple stealthily introduced Apple Sparse Image Format (ASIF), a new sparse disk image format for Apple Silicon, at WWDC; among other features, it might also help Macs remain the best PCs on which to run Windows.

That somewhat counter-intuitive claim is because the new format dramatically improves the efficiency with which Apple Silicon Macs run virtual machines (VMs) by boosting read/write performance. ASIF also makes significant improvements to how Macs handle storage for VMs, and is likely to support third-party virtualization tools once it ships.

What is Apple Sparse Image Format (ASIF)?

Set to appear with macOS Tahoe later this year, ASIF lets files transfer more efficiently between hosts or disks, “because their intrinsic structure doesn’t depend on the host file system’s capabilities,” according to Apple’s developer website. “The size the ASIF file takes on the file system is proportional to the actual data stored in the disk image.”