Diskutil alternative

[MallardDuck]

I've had it with the multi-minute mount times, high fragmentation and poor performance of spinning disks on encrypted APFS. Apple removing the option to do HFS+ encrypted drives has to be one of their most user-hostile actions ever. They've even pulled it out of the command line utility, which is completely brain dead.

So, does anyone know of a third-party utility that can create encrypted HFS+ / mac OSX Extended (journaled) drives?

 

[chabig]

I'm running the latest Ventura 13.3 and Disk Utility can still create Mac OS Extended (Journaled) drives and partitions, at least on a rotating hard drive. Make sure you select View > Show All Devices and select the device, not a volume.

 

[MallardDuck]

Not encrypted.

 

[chabig]

Oh. I see. Can you encrypt it after it's created, from the desktop via right click? That should still work.

 

[MallardDuck]

unfortunately no, that converts it to apfs before encrypting. There isn’t any way, even from the command line. Completely brain dead decision by Apple given how poorly apfs performs on spinning disks. Not everyone can afford multi-terabyte ssd drives, which is apparently what they think.

I can’t get around it for the Time Machine drive, but if I can solve it for everything else, I’ll simply turn Time Machine off. I’m tired of waiting 30-60 seconds per drive (one at a time, not even simultaneously) for them to mount, and getting 1/4 to 1/3 the performance of hfs+ because of this really bad decision.

 

[chabig]

unfortunately no, that converts it to apfs before encrypting.

I guess that happened a few years ago and I didn't notice.

 

[bogdanw]

Apple has removed most of the coreStorage functionality from diskutil in Ventura. The only available commands are now:
"Usage: diskutil [quiet] coreStorage|CS <verb> <options>
where <verb> is as follows:
list (Show status of CoreStorage volumes)
info[rmation] (Get CoreStorage information by UUID or disk)
delete (Delete a CoreStorage logical volume group)
unlockVolume (Attach/mount a locked CoreStorage logical volume)"

I don't know any alternative to that, but there is always VeraCrypt https://veracrypt.fr/en/Home.html

 

[gilby101]

I can’t get around it for the Time Machine drive, but if I can solve it for everything else, I’ll simply turn Time Machine off.

My experience is that TM works very well to APFS hard disk. In fact, my experience is that APFS works fine on hard disks - but your use may be more demanding than mine.

 

[allan.nyholm]

Apple has removed most of the coreStorage functionality from diskutil in Ventura. The only available commands are now:
"Usage: diskutil [quiet] coreStorage|CS <verb> <options>
where <verb> is as follows:
list (Show status of CoreStorage volumes)
info[rmation] (Get CoreStorage information by UUID or disk)
delete (Delete a CoreStorage logical volume group)
unlockVolume (Attach/mount a locked CoreStorage logical volume)"

I don't know any alternative to that, but there is always VeraCrypt https://veracrypt.fr/en/Home.html

Exactly the same as on Monterey. So one would argue it happened with Monterey rather than with Ventura

 

[bogdanw]

Exactly the same as on Monterey. So one would argue it happened with Monterey rather than with Ventura

I mentioned Ventura because the thread is in this category.
As far as I can tell, they have been depreciated since Big Sur.
The functionality is still present in Catalina and Mojave.

 

[NoBoMac]

because of this really bad decision

I’d probably call it “inevitable decision“. Macs now come with SSDs that use APFS, APFS does snapshots, which Time Machine now uses vs the mess of hard links that was HFS+ Time Machine. And CoreStorage (aka encryption on HFS) had a chunk of overhead. So “logical” decision to deprecate HFS functionality.

Time Machine (and filesystem) version of getting rid of floppies, CD/DVD drives.

 

[rpmurray]

What happens if you use an earlier version of macOS to create the HFS+ encrypted volume but then use it on Ventura? Is it just the creation that is no longer supported in Ventura, but Ventura will use an HFS+ encrypted volume if it's been created with an earlier version of Disk Utility?

 

[NoBoMac]

but Ventura will use an HFS+ encrypted volume if it's been created with an earlier version of Disk Utility?

It will.

When you have a new drive or want to enable encryption for TM is when the OS will reformat the drive as APFS and assign a role of “Backup” to the TM partition/volume.

 

[maverick100]

What computer are you using. I am on 2017 iMac I can do all the things you want to do from Disk Utility using the latest version of Ventura?

 

[bogdanw]

diskutil from Catalina can be used in Ventura.

 

[MallardDuck]

I’d probably call it “inevitable decision“. Macs now come with SSDs that use APFS, APFS does snapshots, which Time Machine now uses vs the mess of hard links that was HFS+ Time Machine. And CoreStorage (aka encryption on HFS) had a chunk of overhead. So “logical” decision to deprecate HFS functionality.

Time Machine (and filesystem) version of getting rid of floppies, CD/DVD drives.

Yeah, it's the mount time that's most frustrating when it comes to time machine - 30-60 seconds per encrypted spinning disk, one at a time. Booting my machine takes as long as it did back in the floppy days.

 

[MallardDuck]

My experience is that TM works very well to APFS hard disk. In fact, my experience is that APFS works fine on hard disks - but your use may be more demanding than mine.

Duplicating 8TB takes > 24 hours with apfs. It takes ~12 with hfs+. APFS causes a huge amount of seeking with the drive heads compared to hfs+. That's not an issue with SSD's, but for spinning disks with many files it's just bad.

 

[appltech]

As for me, if you need native support, the easiest solution would be the installation of older macOS as a secondary system (if possible) or on external source (decent HDD or SSD or even SD card).
You may try installing it as a virtual machine, VMWare Player/Workstation, but use what you prefer:

Downgrading macOS? Here’s What You Need to Know

Sometimes, older is better. If you need to downgrade macOS to an earlier version, here’s how

mackeeper.com

 

[MallardDuck]

As for me, if you need native support, the easiest solution would be the installation of older macOS as a secondary system (if possible) or on external source (decent HDD or SSD or even SD card).
You may try installing it as a virtual machine, VMWare Player/Workstation, but use what you prefer:

Downgrading macOS? Here’s What You Need to Know

Sometimes, older is better. If you need to downgrade macOS to an earlier version, here’s how

mackeeper.com

Unfortunately, can't run an old enough OS on a Mx machine to do that.

I'm resigned that Apple's screwed us over on this one. APFS is completely unsuitable for spinning disks, and that's doubly true if they're encrypted.

 

[Evil Lair]

I'm in the same predicament. Tried using Disk Utility from Mojave but it just instantly crashes. Spinning disks are going to be a continuing part of many peoples lives for years/decades to come so the current state isn't tenable. Either APFS gets better optimizations for spinning drives or we need a proper way to encrypt hfs+ again.