MACOS TAHOE BRINGS A NEW DISK IMAGE FORMAT

Summary from the TLDR InfoSec newsletter

macOS Tahoe introduces ASIF (Apple Sparse Image Format), a new disk image format that achieves near-native speeds of 4.8-6.6 GB/s, compared to traditional encrypted sparse images that only reach 100 MB/s on Apple silicon Macs. ASIF images, being intrinsically sparse files in APFS, maintain efficient sizes regardless of the host file system, ideal for virtual machines and high-performance storage. This format can be created exclusively with Tahoe's Disk Utility or diskutil command and is designed to work with macOS Sequoia for mounting. It significantly outperforms existing disk image formats, including sparse bundles, by utilizing a single file for storage.