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Apple File System (APFS) what is the big deal?
- Thread starter Xray50
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Why? The ability to opt out exists. Apple wants users to upgrade to the new file system.
I agree with the users in this thread who've had positive experiences with it. APFS has been rock solid for me since upgrading to High Sierra three months ago.
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Actually we called it Mac OS 8
System 7 was the last time that was used and then Steve Jobs renamed it to Mac OS for versions 8 and 9
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I don't think you fully understand how important a file system really is. Either that or we're talking about two completely different things here, because you keep talking about it as if it were a simple text editor or notes application. I'm talking about the structural underpinnings of everything, the way data is logically written to storage devices and organized internally. If something goes wrong on this level all data is lost. Not just one file, not just one folder: all of it. Gone. That's what I'm afraid of. I'm afraid of unknown and undetected bugs. I'm afraid of one of the many new features messing up everything. I'm afraid of structural file system corruption. I'm afraid of race conditions that Apple has not been able to simulate and thus detect. And that's why I would have much preferred to sit back, wait, and let others do the beta testing for me. Yes, I agree with you that APFS is the future, absolutely. But introducing a new file system by converting all systems without an easy and documented way to opt out is not the right way to do it.
Don't get me wrong: I have no issues with APFS at this point. I haven't experienced any structural corruption or data loss yet. The only thing I don't like about APFS is the way Apple handled its introduction, that's all. In my personal opinion, introducing a new file system should always be an opt-out situation, and Apple should have allowed us to deliberately decide against using it. Then again Apple has never really been about choice - it's been my way of the highway for a long long time now.
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Fiskering,
have a little patience to try to understand his perception for a moment as you're being overly melodramatic.
OS X Panther is almost a decade past and HFS+ has been the underlying file system up to OSX Sierra. He's talking about a file system (as in the underlying way a computer writes files to blocks on a storage medium, not a file heirarchy like what we use in Finder. I think you know what he's meaning but just in case since file system has 2 different meanings.
Also not that he's listed 3 of the new file systems now used in Linux and Unix over the last 2 years so he has an in-depth understanding of file systems. There has been a few that have been a pure joke. We all know the on-going fun with HFS+ file permissions having to be checked and redone over and over during a year in OS X prior to High Sierra, many times this had to be done manually.
So give the guy a break and open your mind ... Apple should allow an easy GUI opt-out and allow security updates to the 1 year previous OS vs leaving it out that he's mentioned; even if not particularly specific what was left out. Nobody listens to understand anymore just for a quick reply. Try not to be that guy
Cheers and Peace.
i stand by my comments, but i could be gentler with them. true that, people sees things differently, and are entitled to feel the way they do.
so, yes; peace.
Well, in most cases "all data" wouldn't be lost. You might lose the entire structure and metadata, but you'd still be able to get back the files.... You'd just lose folder structures, file names, etc. But you'd relatively easily be able to take the files themselves and restore them in a single folder, with names like 000000001, 00000002, etc.
It wouldn't need to support APFS. That's only if you want to attempt and rescue whatever can be rescued of metadata and structure. And save yourself a lot of time.
There are tools that scan for file type structures throughout your disk (this is the same regardless of file system), and gives back a list of potential blocks that contain certain files. At this point you just go through it brute-force wise, and attempt to read the data in chunks until you get what resembles your file.
Regardless, eventually APFS will be supported
Actually we called it Mac OS 8
System 7 was the last time that was used and then Steve Jobs renamed it to Mac OS for versions 8 and 9
View attachment 748235
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Well, if you want to be super technical, they started calling it "Mac OS" with verison 7.6...
Nope. Does it even let you? All my internal drives are APFS and my external are ExFat due to the range of systems I need to use them on.
I don't think you can do it with the GUI, but you can with the Terminal.... And you shouldn't
. A fragmented SSD is slightly slower than normal. A fragmented spinner is terribly slow, and APFS will fragment your data. (if you use copy-on-write)
Because we are talking about APFS, someone may be able to answer something I have been wondering and also the reason I haven't upgraded from Sierra yet : what will happen to my Parallels Desktop Windows virtual machine if I upgrade to High Sierra (and transition to APFS)? Will I need to reinstall Windows and everything else because of that new file system which may or may not be compatible with Windows?
HFS+ isn't compatible with Windows either. Parallels creates a file that acts as a virtual file system for Windows to sit on top of. So in essence, it's got nothing to do with Windows and with 99% certainty it'll work just fine, but you may need to update Parallels first
I have a total of 986,156 files on my hard drive. Finding each one of them in a single folder without corresponding file names constitutes complete loss of data in my book
And that's exactly the point. They will eventually support APFS. I will eventually be willing to convert to APFS. Just not yet.
And I very much disagree with you when it comes to necessity of APFS support in data rescue software. We are talking low level access here - of course you need some sort of structural access to restore data, how else are you to determine potential corresponding blocks and contents? How else are you even to know what constitutes a 1 and what a 0? Obviously, we are not talking forensic labs here, that's a completely different issue.
The GPT would tell you where the file system starts. From there you just scan the drive from end to end. You indeed wouldn't know what is metadata and what is data, but files themselves are not different from file system to file system. The way in which they are stored of course is different, but the files are not. Assuming the files aren't fragmented you'd be able to recognise the structure of a JPEG or whatever and read forwards until you reached the end of the file (probably would require a person to check when that is), or read backwards depending on whether or not the file system was made in a little endian or big endian way, but again, the user would try both for each file.
And what's a 1 and what's a 0 is pretty universal. I have never ever heard of a file system that reads a charge as being 0, or in terms of spinners, reads a magnetic pulse as 0.
It of course starts becoming problematic when the files get fragmented as a result of copy-on-write, in which case it becomes nearly impossible to reassemble data in this way without having access to the file tables.
In an example of someone who has indeed used this above method on fragmented data, she got her picture halfway back, so the upper half of the image was a beautiful sunset, whilst the bottom half was just noise.
So in essence, I'm not saying it's a practical solution. I'm just saying that if it really was essential, non-recreahable data, it wouldn't technically be lost.
And whenever data recovery software gains support for APFS it would be even more easily regrettable. Well, I suppose I shouldn't say "even more easily" as the first mentioned method isn't easy, but you get the point.
Regardless, I am not among those who think you're in the wrong for being hesitant to trust APFS. If I didn't have extensive backups on other file systems, I would probably also be more hesitant than I am. BUT! APFS also does something that makes me trust it a lot more than HFS+. Atomic metadata operations. If you have a sudden loss of power in the middle of a write operation, you won't lose your file under any circumstances, which would likely happen in HFS+
as with the OS, there's never that 'definitive moment', where the software is finally perfect, bug-free.. and needs to never change. all of this (including the hardware) is always a work-in-progress, so really, the decision is: when do i move forward? not 'if'. and for many people (like myself), there's some joy in diving right in...
But for business critical equipment or other essential resources, it is generally advisable to stay a few ticks back, on the more tested software/hardware. And the risk of being on the bleeding edge is different depending on the specific component. A file system being a high risk component relative to something like updating your Firefox snap package, in which case not even its dependencies are affecting other components.
PS. The snap part was referring to a Linux packaging system. Some app bundles are packaged in a similar way on macOS but not all and even the ones that have certain libraries packaged with them like a snap, may still make calls to shared libraries.
of course; i take my risks on my personal macs (altho one is my livelihood mac), and i take responsibility for my actions (which sometimes provide, um, real challenges). our work should always come first.
I use Bootcamp and I can't read my APFS drives as I encrypt them. Apparently some services like Macdrive DO support APFS but the disks cannot be encrypted.
Yes, there is no Windows driver for APFS (from Apple. MacDrive has indeed reverse engineered a driver for unencrypted drives), but there also doesn't need to be a driver for something like Parallels to work. As Parallels runs on macOS and has Windows run on top of itself, it can make sure Windows doesn't need to worry about file systems. Making Windows think it runs on NTFS or whatever it wants to, and doing all the work.
Right on I figured you were a good person just confused what he meant. Glad you understood where I was coming from. I too get caught up and heated from time to time and grateful others help me out as well. Have a great one today
Thanks buddy, I (finally) just made the jump to High Sierra and my virtual machine is working perfectly fine, didn't even have to update Parallels
Thanks buddy, I (finally) just made the jump to High Sierra and my virtual machine is working perfectly fine, didn't even have to update Parallels
You're welcome
I don't think you can do it with the GUI, but you can with the Terminal.... And you shouldn't
A fragmented SSD is slightly slower than normal. A fragmented spinner is terribly slow, and APFS will fragment your data. (if you use copy-on-write)
Also, Time Machine can't use APFS-formatted drives in case users have this intention. HFS+ only.