External drive format for Photos Library

[DonCarlos]

Hello all I have always turned to you all for input and information So bear with me if I stumble along
Photo Library format in external

I only store photos on my 6tb external, which is formatted as HFS + I have almost 3 tb of photos from 2012.

I have noticed that on each and every Photo version that the Library stored is also changed to the version

my question is: as we move forward on to new iOS and versions, will my HFS still be okay, or at some point will I need to start a new external and format it APFS?

currently I use Catalina with
a APFS format on my Mac and haven’t had an error come up

any insights or information is appreciated

 

[chscag]

As far as we know, HFS+ format can still be used with Big Sur. However, SSDs should be formatted as APFS for maximum efficiency. You can leave your 6TB as HFS+.

APFS has been the default formatting for internal drives since Mojave.

 

[Fishrrman]

Platter-based external drives should be left in HFS+.
APFS slows down platter-based HDDs, with excessive fragmentation.

The ONLY drives I would format to APFS (internal or external) would be those with bootable copies of the OS on them.
But... that's just me.

 

[DonCarlos]

Well Thank all of the comments........I understand that on this 6 TB platter base Photos Library, I can just keep putting photos on the Library. So that answers that........

......but on another matter looks like after I formatted on a different external (APSF) for the first Time Machine, the TM would not do a backup unless it was HFS+, and erased it to HFS+ even though my internal SSD Mac is APSF.

Oh Well. I am sure that will change in the future.

I just think that everything needs to be on the same format as the Mac.

 

[AlumaMac]

Well Thank all of the comments........I understand that on this 6 TB platter base Photos Library, I can just keep putting photos on the Library. So that answers that........

......but on another matter looks like after I formatted on a different external (APSF) for the first Time Machine, the TM would not do a backup unless it was HFS+, and erased it to HFS+ even though my internal SSD Mac is APSF.

Oh Well. I am sure that will change in the future.

I just think that everything needs to be on the same format as the Mac.

I've encountered APFS container corruption on an external drive that was unrepairable via Disk Utility or command line tools. And since there are currently ZERO third party applications that can repair APFS volumes all my important data is stored on HFS+ volumes.