APFS or Mac OS

[artiquarius]

My 2017 iMac running Mojave just won't handle more than me laying down around six tracks in Logic ProX after which it habitually stops and displays an "Overload" message. So I have decided to buy an external drive, possibly SSD and transfer all my instrument libraries over to that as I am told it would help the situation. I have been in contact recently with Native instruments and with 8Dio productions because of slow instrument loading in some cases. They have both given me totally different advice and now I am confused and don't know which way to go. Trying to get to the bottom of this is a nightmare so if any one has a definitive answer I would really like to know.
The advice from both parties is as follows :-

(8Dio Productions)...... APFS is faster when it comes to running program files. Program files are a lot smaller, and don't come near to the file limits imposed by an APFS drive. However sample libraries are large containers of usually very large files. Since APFS has limits on what it can do with larger files, Mac OS is recommended when handling anything more than a few GB in size.

(Native Instruments)....... If you were to move your libraries to an external drive we would recommend making sure the drive is connected directly and formatted to APFS.

Which way should I go - Anyone?

Thanks. BRIAN

 

[bogdanw]

Use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) Plus (HFS+, Journaled HFS Plus) for the external drive.

File system formats available in Disk Utility on Mac https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/file-system-formats-dsku19ed921c/mac

 

[BrianBaughn]

Is it 8Dio that is telling you that their samples load slower when on an APFS SSD? Dubious idea.

APFS isn't great on a spinner hard drive and maybe that's what they're referencing.

I've always had my samples on an external drive. First it was mechanical drives and then I changed to SATA SSDs which are probably only about three times as fast for loading Kontakt instruments.

My previous computer was a hackintosh with worse specs than a 2017 iMac and I didn't have frequent "overload" issues.

How much RAM do you have? Normally, the samples for virtual instruments get loaded into RAM…and once they're in RAM the speed of the disk from whence they were loaded should be irrelevant. I had 32GB of RAM on that computer (and also on my new Mac Studio)…specifically for loading those instruments in Logic Pro.

There are a lot of factors that can cause Logic to choke but you haven't really provided much detail on the specs of your iMac or the settings you're using in the application…so it's difficult to pinpoint a reason.