APFS Not Fast

[vulgo]

APFS is fair game and quite similar to HFS+, actually good in comparison but some optimization might be needed. OpenZFS for the win, I was just fooling around with ZFS but I think I am going to keep it. Data compression with LZ4, actual error checking (for correction and healing I would need RAID I think), but quite aggressive memory caching which would explain those SSD-like results for a humble mechanical drive like mine with OpenZFS. Memory pressure increases noticeably with this file system, but I think that 16GM of RAM can handle it easily . This ZFS FS also detects memory pressure and will release memory back to the OS for other tasks accordingly.

Sorry. No way are ZFS or APFS as fast as HFS+ on a single partition/vdev. Time a reasonably large copy operation with finder and a stopwatch, say 4 GB of files. Not very precise but it won't need to be. Same source, same destination disk.

Are we doomed then? There will be the time come when macos will only boot from APFS filesystem -- I guess maybe in MacOS 10.14

Don't know about you, i'll be booting from it in 10.13 when it gets released

 

[freesby]

Sorry. No way are ZFS or APFS as fast as HFS+ on a single partition/vdev. Time a reasonably large copy operation with finder and a stopwatch, say 4 GB of files. Not very precise but it won't need to be. Same source, same destination disk.

Sure why not, but most files going to my HDD aren't bigger than 100MB. Performance wise both ZFS and APFS are decent. Besides, ZFS offers a rich set for useful features that I just can't ignore such as data checksums, transparent compression, snapshots, datasets, and so on. I find it clearly superior to HFS+ while APFS seems to work great for SSD, great combo. I don't think that HFS+ will or should be missed.

 

[vulgo]

Sure why not, but most files going to my HDD aren't bigger than 100MB. Performance wise both ZFS and APFS are decent. Besides, ZFS offers a rich set for useful features that I just can't ignore such as data checksums, transparent compression, snapshots, datasets, and so on. I find it clearly superior to HFS+ while APFS seems to work great for SSD, great combo. I don't think that HFS+ will or should be missed.

Though i wish it was true, i think your benchmark is deceptive and that is why i suggested a large copy operation to an initialised dataset. You might see a significant drop in speed when ZFS starts R/W from the disk rather than the cache. Even with the CPU intensive features you mention disabled.

 

[freesby]

Though i wish it was true, i think your benchmark is deceptive and that is why i suggested a large copy operation to an initialised dataset. You might see a significant drop in speed when ZFS starts R/W from the disk rather than the cache. Even with the CPU intensive features you mention disabled.

If your biggest concern is to transfer +4GB files to the disk without cache or any other filesystem improvement and superior features, then yes by all means use HFS+. The benchmarks might be unfair and misleading in the sense that they can't bypass the ZFS cache, but there is not a good reason to not use the cache in real life situations anyway . The CPU 'intensive' features such as transparent compression should actually improve performance in most cases, albeit I can't detect any significant overhead in CPU usage. To be fair, performance is not the first priority for openZFS, so in that specific situation you are probably right.

 

[vulgo]

If your biggest concern is to transfer +4GB files to the disk without cache or any other filesystem improvement and superior features

It isn't, i just can't rely on data being in the cache all the time. Would go with the recommended defaults for zfs if i were using it on macOs. Repartitioning some point soon, would like to reduce my hfs+ usage to the /Users folder and where fastest r/w (with or without cache) is important. Looking at all reasonable options.

 

[el_charlie]

So, do you recommend to upgrade to APFS? I've read that on mechanical HDDs it's way slower, I think it's more optimized for flash storage.

Another related question. On my laptop I have the bootloader on the EFI partition of my SSD. If I upgrad on the fly to APFS will the EFI partition be deleted? Do I have to boot from an USB and reinstall Clover??

Thanks in advance.

 

[spescarus]

So, do you recommend to upgrade to APFS? I've read that on mechanical HDDs it's way slower, I think it's more optimized for flash storage.

Another related question. On my laptop I have the bootloader on the EFI partition of my SSD. If I upgrad on the fly to APFS will the EFI partition be deleted? Do I have to boot from an USB and reinstall Clover??

Thanks in advance.

If you upgrade to APFS the EFI partition will not be deleted. But, before the upgrade you need to have Clover boot r4097 or later version and you need to put apfs.efi to /EFI/Clover/drivers64UEFI/ and /EFI/Clover/drivers64/ for APFS support.

 

[el_charlie]

If you upgrade to APFS the EFI partition will not be deleted. But, before the upgrade you need to have Clover boot r4097 or later version and you need to put apfs.efi to /EFI/Clover/drivers64UEFI/ and /EFI/Clover/drivers64/ for APFS support.

Thanks.

I'm on the latest Clover (4114) with the proper apfs.efi. I was worried the conversion would mess with the bootloader on my laptop where I only have one drive.

On my desktop I've upgraded just fine from Sierra and the conversion also went fine, although I have clover on a separate drive.

The only thing is that I find High Sierra a bit buggy. Sometimes the screen won't turn on and I also had a weird reboot. Also some apps don't work great and have some graphics glitches here and there, maybe it has to do with Metal 2. I have a GTX 760.

Cheers!

 

[spescarus]

Thanks.

I'm on the latest Clover (4114) with the proper apfs.efi. I was worried the conversion would mess with the bootloader on my laptop where I only have one drive.

On my desktop I've upgraded just fine from Sierra and the conversion also went fine, although I have clover on a separate drive.

The only thing is that I find High Sierra a bit buggy. Sometimes the screen won't turn on and I also had a weird reboot. Also some apps don't work great and have some graphics glitches here and there, maybe it has to do with Metal 2. I have a GTX 760.

Cheers!

It is a bit buggy. I have the same problems on my laptop. On my desktop is working fine, except for one small problem: sometimes is freeze for a few seconds when I open some applications. But it still in beta

 

[spescarus]

Thanks.

I'm on the latest Clover (4114) with the proper apfs.efi. I was worried the conversion would mess with the bootloader on my laptop where I only have one drive.

On my desktop I've upgraded just fine from Sierra and the conversion also went fine, although I have clover on a separate drive.

The only thing is that I find High Sierra a bit buggy. Sometimes the screen won't turn on and I also had a weird reboot. Also some apps don't work great and have some graphics glitches here and there, maybe it has to do with Metal 2. I have a GTX 760.

Cheers!

On my desktop I had to add -disablegfxfirmware on clover to be able to boot after upgrade.