--- title: Your Mac is slowing you down (a rant about file systems) description: A detailed benchmark-driven rant compares file system performance for developers doing heavy agentic dev work with parallel work trees and node module... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/your-mac-is-slowing-you-down-a-rant-about-file-systems--cgzrla2ao twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: Your Mac is slowing you down (a rant about file systems) | daily.dev og:description: A detailed benchmark-driven rant compares file system performance for developers doing heavy agentic dev work with parallel work trees and node module... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/your-mac-is-slowing-you-down-a-rant-about-file-systems--cgzrla2ao og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/CgZRla2aO.png og:image:alt: Your Mac is slowing you down (a rant about file systems) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # Your Mac is slowing you down (a rant about file systems) **[Theo - t3․gg](https://daily.dev/sources/t3dotgg)** · 31 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A detailed benchmark-driven rant compares file system performance for developers doing heavy agentic dev work with parallel work trees and node module installs. APFS on Mac performs dramatically worse than Linux file systems like ext4 and XFS for deletions, installs, and work tree creation - sometimes 5-10x slower. XFS with LZ4/VDO compression emerges as the best option, cutting storage use by up to 3x while maintaining speed comparable to ext4. ZFS and Btrfs are ruled out as poor fits despite their other strengths. The creator also covers Rift by Anomaly, a copy-on-write work tree tool for Mac OS that appears to be an abandoned project. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Questions this post answers ### Why is pnpm install so much slower on my Mac than on Linux even when hitting the cache? APFS handles many small files, linking, and hard links far less efficiently than Linux file systems like ext4 or XFS. In one benchmark, a cached pnpm install with post-install scripts took nearly 35 seconds on an M1 Max MacBook versus under 10 seconds on a Linux box, and switching to hard links pushed the Mac time up to around 100 seconds due to APFS's hard-link overhead. _Developers wrestling with slow local dev environments can track file system and tooling tradeoffs on daily.dev._ ### What is the best Linux file system for fast git clean and work tree deletion during agentic coding? XFS combined with VDO and LZ4 compression performed best in benchmarks, offering fast deletion and installation speeds close to plain ext4 while cutting storage use significantly, around 44% less space than stock ext4. Plain ext4 was also fast but lacked compression or linking, so 125 work trees with pnpm installs took up 75GB versus 24GB with XFS plus VDO. _Teams optimizing storage and speed for parallel agent work trees can compare file system benchmarks on daily.dev._ ### Are ZFS and Btrfs good choices for running many parallel AI agent work trees with node modules? No, both were ruled out for this workload despite being popular for RAID setups. ZFS was meaningfully slower for creating work trees and handled cleanups on hard links poorly, taking over 5 seconds versus under 3 for XFS with VDO, while Btrfs took a heavy performance hit when creating work trees in parallel, going from 6 seconds to 2.1 seconds per operation under load. _Developers choosing a file system for parallel agent workloads can weigh these tradeoffs before deciding on daily.dev._ ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Linux 7.0 File-System Benchmarks With XFS Leading The Way](https://daily.dev/posts/linux-7-0-file-system-benchmarks-with-xfs-leading-the-way-tykiiewbx) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [Btrfs, EXT4, F2FS & XFS On Linux 7.2 vs. Linux 7.3 Performance](https://daily.dev/posts/btrfs-ext4-f2fs-xfs-on-linux-7-2-vs-linux-7-3-performance-aosgefycy) · Phoronix · 0 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#linux](https://daily.dev/tags/linux), [#performance](https://daily.dev/tags/performance), [#mac](https://daily.dev/tags/mac), [#pnpm](https://daily.dev/tags/pnpm), [#filesystems](https://daily.dev/tags/filesystems) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/your-mac-is-slowing-you-down-a-rant-about-file-systems--cgzrla2ao) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"Your Mac is slowing you down (a rant about file systems)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-mac-is-slowing-you-down-a-rant-about-file-systems--cgzrla2ao","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-mac-is-slowing-you-down-a-rant-about-file-systems--cgzrla2ao"},"datePublished":"2026-08-20T20:13:14.860Z","dateModified":"2026-09-14T09:21:32.064Z","description":"A detailed benchmark-driven rant compares file system performance for developers doing heavy agentic dev work with parallel work trees and node module...","image":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4wVNFaFDIn8/sddefault.jpg","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4wVNFaFDIn8/sddefault.jpg","isAccessibleForFree":true,"articleSection":"Theo - t3․gg","inLanguage":"en","publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180}},"author":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Theo - t3․gg","logo":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--UmX7IyU3--/f_auto/v1704628081/logos/t3dotgg.jpg","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/t3dotgg"},"commentCount":0,"discussionUrl":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-mac-is-slowing-you-down-a-rant-about-file-systems--cgzrla2ao","interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":1},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"keywords":"linux,performance,mac,pnpm,filesystems","timeRequired":"PT31M","video":{"@type":"VideoObject","name":"Your Mac is slowing you down (a rant about file systems)","description":"A detailed benchmark-driven rant compares file system performance for developers doing heavy agentic dev work with parallel work trees and node module...","thumbnailUrl":"https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4wVNFaFDIn8/sddefault.jpg","uploadDate":"2026-08-20T20:13:14.860Z","duration":"PT31M","url":"https://api.daily.dev/r/CgZRla2aO","embedUrl":"https://www.youtube.com/embed/4wVNFaFDIn8"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Theo - t3․gg","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/t3dotgg"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Your Mac is slowing you down (a rant about file systems)"}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"FAQPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/your-mac-is-slowing-you-down-a-rant-about-file-systems--cgzrla2ao#faq","mainEntity":[{"@type":"Question","name":"Why is pnpm install so much slower on my Mac than on Linux even when hitting the cache?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"APFS handles many small files, linking, and hard links far less efficiently than Linux file systems like ext4 or XFS. In one benchmark, a cached pnpm install with post-install scripts took nearly 35 seconds on an M1 Max MacBook versus under 10 seconds on a Linux box, and switching to hard links pushed the Mac time up to around 100 seconds due to APFS's hard-link overhead. Developers wrestling with slow local dev environments can track file system and tooling tradeoffs on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"What is the best Linux file system for fast git clean and work tree deletion during agentic coding?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"XFS combined with VDO and LZ4 compression performed best in benchmarks, offering fast deletion and installation speeds close to plain ext4 while cutting storage use significantly, around 44% less space than stock ext4. Plain ext4 was also fast but lacked compression or linking, so 125 work trees with pnpm installs took up 75GB versus 24GB with XFS plus VDO. Teams optimizing storage and speed for parallel agent work trees can compare file system benchmarks on daily.dev."}},{"@type":"Question","name":"Are ZFS and Btrfs good choices for running many parallel AI agent work trees with node modules?","acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"No, both were ruled out for this workload despite being popular for RAID setups. ZFS was meaningfully slower for creating work trees and handled cleanups on hard links poorly, taking over 5 seconds versus under 3 for XFS with VDO, while Btrfs took a heavy performance hit when creating work trees in parallel, going from 6 seconds to 2.1 seconds per operation under load. Developers choosing a file system for parallel agent workloads can weigh these tradeoffs before deciding on daily.dev."}}]} ```