Setup a Development Workspace with a Sparse Bundle

A sparse bundle is a macOS file that stores the contents and structure of a full file system. When mounted, macOS will create a logical volume allowing you to access files the same way you would a USB stick or SSD partition. There are a number of advantages to having your development environment setup within a sparse bundle:

• Keeps projects together in one place.
• If you work for multiple clients, each one can have an isolated disk image.
• Can get your development environment closer to production

Create a Sparse Bundle

hdiutil create \
  -fs 'Case-sensitive APFS' \
  -size 100g \
  -volname "workspace" \
  ~/workspace.sparsebundle

Let’s break this down:

• hdiutil create: Creates the a bundle using the hdiutil
• -fs 'Case-sensitive APFS': -fs selects the file system type. A key difference between macOS and Linux is that Linux is case sensitive. Having a case sensitive workspace has allowed me to catch extremely subtle errors (such as import 'File' vs import 'file').
• -size 100g: Set the maximum size to 100gb. Don’t worry, it won’t allocate all 100gb until you use it.
• -volname "workspace": Sets the volume name to workspace
• ~/workspace.sparseimage: Output file path

Double click your newly created file and voila! You now have a mounted disk image.