> When dedup is enabled [...] every single write and free operation requires a lookup and a then a write to the dedup table, regardless of whether or not the write or free proper was actually done by the pool.

Linked clones shouldn’t need that. They likely start out with only references to the original blocks, and then replace them when they change. If so, it’s a different concept (as it would mean that any new duplicate blocks are not shared), but for the use case of “spin up a hundred identical VMs that only change comparably little” it sounds more efficient performance-wise, with a negligible loss in space efficiency.

Am I certain of this? No, this is just what I quickly pieced together based on some assumptions (albeit reasonable ones). Happy to be told otherwise.