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[Guide] Avoid APFS conversion on High Sierra update or fresh install

How does one do this on a fresh install? I have the same Crucial M4 drive as you. When I boot from my USB install stick and go to Disk Utility, the only format option I have for that SSD is now APFS. The drop-down menu doesn't list anything else.

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Hey RehabMan, thanks for your contribution to the community.

I have the latest high sierra build on an NVME drive with APFS. I read that TRIM is permanently enabled on these drives with APFS, which may be a big factor in my 2-3 minute boot time. I'm now thinking about whether it is worth the risk of copying my data over to another drive, reformatting into HFS+, and copying it back.

From what you know about the Mojave beta, is this something that will continue to be a problem or will this TRIM issue be fixed?
 
Hey RehabMan, thanks for your contribution to the community.

I have the latest high sierra build on an NVME drive with APFS. I read that TRIM is permanently enabled on these drives with APFS, which may be a big factor in my 2-3 minute boot time. I'm now thinking about whether it is worth the risk of copying my data over to another drive, reformatting into HFS+, and copying it back.

From what you know about the Mojave beta, is this something that will continue to be a problem or will this TRIM issue be fixed?

Actually, TRIM is always enabled on NVMe.
I tend to not use NVMe for macOS..., but I might eventually experiment with it more in Mojave.
 
Yes. TRIM is enabled at a lower level than file system choice.
Hmm, so I may be better off just booting off a slower, non-NVME SSD formatted with HFS+J

If I then stored my applications and documents on the NVME would that be fine with boot or will boot be slowed just because of the presence of an NVME even if it isn't being used as the boot drive.
 
Hmm, so I may be better off just booting off a slower, non-NVME SSD formatted with HFS+J

The problem can be avoided with HFS+J because we can disable TRIM.

If I then stored my applications and documents on the NVME would that be fine with boot or will boot be slowed just because of the presence of an NVME even if it isn't being used as the boot drive.

Will probably still be a problem as a full TRIM will still likely be performed. It is something you could always try. I use NVMe only for Windows currently.
 
Thanks for all the information on this topic - I was able to sucessfully install HS 10.13.6 on a Samsung 840 EVO SSD with the .xml tweak.
The system seems to work well bar some driver issues BUT I can only boot off the installer USB. Further investigation revealed that the SSD only has the single partition and no EFI boot partition. Previously I had installed using APFS, also succesfully, and noticed that there were FOUR partitions created by the installer including EFI, Recovery, the main system and a preinstaller (I forget the details).

Has the xml hack resulted in the installer not creating the necessary boot partition?

Many thanks,
Frog
 
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