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 a day ago | parent [-]

The same concepts exist in ZFS, BtrFS and, IIRC, XFS.

▲

rf15 a day ago | parent [-]

also, worst case you can do this with link features? Which is basically every system under the sun.

▲

msh a day ago | parent [-]

but 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 a day ago \| parent [-]
		Link might be desirable for your e-book or mp3 collections. Or .iso images, MAME ROMs, and other files that are unlikely to be changed.