Apple's Policy on Apple File System (APFS) for High Sierra

[nomad411]

I still can't figure out if I did a good or bad thing going with APFS.. It took a while and finally I was convinced it was fine, having been tested in iOS devices etc.. Still, I'm feeling stupid when I try and figure out APFS.

My system does feel like it took a hit, performance wise. Also had a weird crash last night, never had that before.

Should I switch the drive back to HFS+? I backup with SuperDuper to a spinning drive every night, so I guess I could always go back anytime?

--confused

 

[mm2margaret]

I still can't figure out if I did a good or bad thing going with APFS.. It took a while and finally I was convinced it was fine, having been tested in iOS devices etc.. Still, I'm feeling stupid when I try and figure out APFS.

Should I switch the drive back to HFS+? I backup with SuperDuper to a spinning drive every night, so I guess I could always go back anytime?

--confused

Tough to say....I mean if it's working fine for you, I wouldn't touch it, even though I don't much care for APFS.....but if you're having problems, well I can only speak for me.... and if that were the case on one of my systems, and it was the only one on APFS, I'd go back. But I really can't say for you....

 

[vulgo]

Still, I'm feeling stupid when I try and figure out APFS.

It works similar to other modern filesystems.

 

[Shoikan]

For those asking if APFS will cause problems with compatibility with applications. My guesstimate is no, it won't, unless the application is using some very low level functionality that is specific to HFS+ or any of the other 'classic' filesystems you might be using on your mac or hackintosh (like disk optimization stuff, or whatever).

The reason for this is how a UNIX OS (and macOS is at it's root still a UNIX OS) sees a filesystem. Or rather.... How it presents a filesystem to it's applications. It is the task of the OS to make the application unaware of the lower level intricacies of hardware, whether it is using an ATA, SATA, SAS, USB flashdrive, SSD or whatever. Additionally it is it's task to act as an abstraction layer between the application and things like filesystems. The app asks for 'open a file' for instance and the OS should make sure the filesystem/storage layer takes care of that appropriately. The app should not need to know about anything else than opening a file (etc) and where (it thinks) it is. So, I am expecting that software developers, in the vast majority of cases, should not have to change anything in their code. People that write stuff that tries to poke directly into the filesystem layer... Well, that's another case

 

[RogueFive]

How about the fact that APFS only works on SSD flash media and doesn't work on HDD media?

Incorrect statement. I have converted multiple spinners via disk util to APFS without issues. Right click, it'll give you the option (and it works)

 

[trs96]

Here's an general intro to APFS and some more detailed info about how it works too.

 

[vulgo]

People that write stuff that tries to poke directly into the filesystem layer...

Not using the APIs correctly is probably enough. The problems i've noticed all seem to involve cross platform apps.

 

[VioletDragon]

Incorrect statement. I have converted multiple spinners via disk util to APFS without issues. Right click, it'll give you the option (and it works)

Why would you want to use APFS on a Spinning Disks? APFS is only designed for SSDs.
Using APFS with Spinning Disks will cause bad performance. No Point better to stick with HFS+J.
Apples intentions of APFS is for Apple SSDs not Spinning Disks.
I haven't bothered to migrate to APFS on my Hack neither on my Apple MacBook 2011.

 

[In-N-Out]

Mike Bombich, designer of Carbon Copy Cloner seems to have confidence in Apple's new APFS. See his Evaluating High Sierra Upgrade blog post here: https://bombich.com/blog

 

[mm2margaret]

Mike Bombich, designer of Carbon Copy Cloner seems to have confidence in Apple's new APFS. See his Evaluating High Sierra Upgrade blog post here: https://bombich.com/blog

Well, don't get me wrong.....eventually, Apple will get APFS right and all the third party apps will update to support it, but right now.....it's just not quite ready and supported.......and for me, that makes it not something I want bet my business on.