I am pro-fusion and I'd rather stick with HFS+ than risk any file system trouble. Good call by Apple! Let somebody else beta test APFS on-fusion.
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New Apple File System Coming in macOS High Sierra Won't Work With Fusion Drives
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If it's your primary machine, it'd be absolutely foolhardy to put a beta OS on it, and if you're not a Mac developer, there's not much point.
My High Sierra drive will be a clone of a drive that goes back to Snow Leopard without a single clean install in between. This notion that with every computer purchase or beta test, you have to start all over again is BUNK! Peoples lives do not start over every 1-2 years. I still have some emails from the 1990s that are important records to keep. Along the way, I have installed Clean Install backups to rely on when there's been a problem, but along the way, I've managed to solve every one over time, so those backups are rarely if ever used and only temporarily. Of course, with nearly 8TB of space, I can do things many people can't. I can clone the entire system and install over a mission critical installation without worry. If something fails miserably, I just wait for a fix and do it again.
[doublepost=1505767876][/doublepost]What?! Apple designs OS that isn't supported my their base models??????
When macOS High Sierra is released to the public next week, the new Apple File System (APFS) feature will be limited to Macs with all-flash built-in storage, which means it won't work with iMacs that include Fusion Drives.
iMacs with Fusion Drives were converted to APFS during the beta testing process in the first macOS High Sierra beta, but support was removed in subsequent betas and not reimplemented.
With the release of the Golden Master version of the software, Apple has confirmed APFS will not be available for Fusion Drives and has provided instructions for converting from APFS back to the standard HFS+ format.
Public Beta testers who had an iMac with a Fusion Drive converted to APFS will need to follow a long list of instructions to convert back to HFS+, including making a Time Machine Backup, creating a bootable installer, and using Disk Utility to reformat their iMacs and reinstall macOS High Sierra.
Apple on September 5 published a support document confirming compatibility. When customers with an all-flash machine upgrade to macOS High Sierra install the update next week, their drives will be converted to AFPS. Apple explicitly says "Fusion Drives and hard disk drives aren't converted."
Apple says APFS will not be supported on Fusion Drives "in the initial release of macOS High Sierra," which suggests support could be added for Fusion Drives at a later date after lingering bugs are worked out.
Apple File System is a more modern file system than HFS+ and is optimized for solid state drives. It is safe and secure, offering crash protection, safe document saves, stable snapshots, simplified backups, and strong native encryption.
It's also more responsive than HFS+ with features like instant file and directory cloning, fast directory sizing, high performance parallelized metadata operations, and sparse file writes.
Apple plans to release macOS High Sierra on Monday, September 25.
Article Link: New Apple File System Coming in macOS High Sierra Won't Work With Fusion Drives
They're thinking, "Hey, I got everything I paid for and High Sierra too!"
What I'm curious about is what happens with Fusion drives that are both SSD. By that I mean if a Fusion Drive iMac has the hard drive replaced with a SATA SSD but you stay with a Fusion setup so you don't have to manage two drives. This is technically all Flash storage but it is also a CoreStorageVolume. I wonder if it would be changed to APFS or not.
I have fusion drive and glad Apple withdraw APFS for fusion drive if not working properly. I don't want lose my files, etc (I do have backup).
Not see any info about time machine? Fusion drive mac will stay same file system so that mean time machine will carry on working like normal? Also mac with SSD only convert to APFS will time machine work? I remember early beta members say time machine not working with APFS. Have that change or still not working?
Not see any info about time machine? Fusion drive mac will stay same file system so that mean time machine will carry on working like normal? Also mac with SSD only convert to APFS will time machine work? I remember early beta members say time machine not working with APFS. Have that change or still not working?
The new file system has nothing to do with the type of drive SSD or HDD the problem seems to be with the Fusion Drive configuration. So if you do not have two drives fused together then you shouldn't be worried. I don't think you need to reformat your Time Machine for it to work with your Mac APFS filesystem.
Support for APFS will come. Most probably in 10.13.1.
1. Anything from slowing down your computer to catastrophic data loss. No way of knowing, unfortunately.
2. Almost certainly yes. I expect this is a priority and will likely ship in the .1 update (or if not, in an early .x update).
I don't think this is what the OP was saying, but for what it's worth, NTFS is better than HFS+.
As long as you're on El Capitan you'll continue getting security updates for the next year, so it's fine not to upgrade. You'll definitely want to upgrade in the next year to keep getting those security updates.
I upgraded from El Capitan directly to the latest Sierra update (10.12.6) as not much in it appealed to me, and it's been a very smooth experience. It's a minor feature, but I've quite appreciated the ability to change my Finder to sort folders and files separately (like Windows does it).
No. My complaint is the in beta they said "Yes" and now they say "No". With the trouble for us stupid beta testers to have to go back to HFS+.
Time Machine is still not supported for APFS, regardless of what format you have on your internal drive. All Time Machine drives are running HFS+.
Apple made clear that Time Machine would be coming later, nearly from the first announcements of APFS. There will be several major benefits of moving Time Machine to APFS, but if I was to beta test a backup method I'd need to run a parallel backup on HFS+ as well. Nothing's more important than a good backup when you're testing.
Why do you think so? I wouldn't necessarily recommend someone to skip High Sierra entirely, but skipping the .0 release wouldn't be a bad idea for the average user. That's what I plan to do. (I may skip several more point releases as well before I decide to upgrade.)
I seriously doubt they'll make this exception. CoreStorage has to be converted to an APFS Container for any Fusion configuration; I think that's the most likely reason for holding back. I doubt this has to do with the type of drive that's being used for Fusion.
This seems to be way too much unclarity around. Think I pass the HS for awhile. This is not how a release of a new OS should proceed. I'll wait until the got their **** together at HQ
Seems like they are to busy with other things to release a new OS that actually is really worked through and ready for major public release.
This they should've known long time ago, not just before release.
THIS is what have kept them to busy at these days. Too full of that...
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They released support during beta testing. Problems were found and could not be fixed in time. They deactivated prior to public release to ensure that users had a smooth experience.
Yah, real classic...
They did the right thing, Mr. Mellow Fuzz.
Going by some posts in the Apple Developer Forum about the 10.13 beta, the issues with APFS on Fusion Drives are:
- wake from sleep issues (workaround available)
- boot camp issues
- speed issues (how ironic)
- high resource usage issues
- reclaiming free space issues (FileVault only?)
Some (or many) beta testers don't understand the meaning of the word "test." Nothing is "yes" until the GM release. Before that, nothing is etched in stone. No promises. If you're not mentally (and physically) prepared to do a full erase/reinstall/restore from backup during the course of an OS beta, then you're better off waiting for the GM release.
Personally, that's one of the things I like about betas - it's actual participation in the testing and development of a product. It's not supposed to be a free trial, where you either like it or you don't. You're there to help ensure that the wider user population doesn't have the problems you had.
Apple used to be consistent with many things. like the macOS principles. someone from the mid 90s could use even sierra w/o asking a question.
the same was true for IOS - slide 2 unlock, etc.
now out of the random they screwed up all the gestures with that stupid iphone x.
i miss Steve and i miss Scott as well.
I am a Fusion Drive owner and it does not bother me at all. I will just upgrade to High Sierra and it will run HFS+ like it has for two years already!
I wonder if Finder, Spotlight, etc. will still pause or 'spinning wheel' for several seconds while any external storage wakes up.
There is no "yes" in beta. Beta are for developers that want to make sure their software will work on future version of the platforms they support, anyway. And intended to be installed in a separate partition for this type of testing and not used as the primary OS. That said, this is not news, I have read about it several weeks ago, and the release notes for an older beta of the system alerted that Fusion Drive was not supported anymore.
This seems to be way too much unclarity around. Think I pass the HS for awhile. This is not how a release of a new OS should proceed. I'll wait until the got their **** together at HQ
Seems like they are to busy with other things to release a new OS that actually is really worked through and ready for major public release.
This they should've known long time ago, not just before release.
THIS is what have kept them to busy at these days. Too full of that...
They stopped converting Fusion Drives to APFS early in the public beta, so it seems they did know they had issues. The question then became, "How soon before we can solve the issues?"
During the course of the beta, there was probably value in continuing to keep testing the OS on APFS-formatted Fusion Drives. Now that it's time to test the GM installer, the people with APFS-formatted Fusion Drives have been required to bring their Macs back to the condition end-users will be encountering - an HFS+-formatted Fusion Drive (I'm one of them - I did the job, it went smoothly, just took time). No doubt the release code has been written to ensure that nobody accidentally or intentionally tries to create an APFS-formatted Fusion Drive until Apple considers it safe to do so.
This is exactly how a release of a new OS should proceed. An OS should be tested thoroughly before unleashing it on the public. If that means certain features are held back, then those features are held back.
As to whether Apple is too distracted... they have what, 120,000 direct employees? They don't reassign software developers to the loading dock when there's new product to ship.