Posting this here to get it on the internet...
You'd think Time Machine (you know, the thing made by Apple) would work with the latest Apple file system that has been around for almost 3 years now. Guess again.
So I was setting up Time Machine on a computer. I wanted my backups to be encrypted:
1. Went to Disk Utility and formatted the drive. APFS (because it's the latest thing) and encrypted. Entered a password. No problem. I've done this a dozen times over the years, albeit formatting to HFS+ because that was the latest thing at the time.
2. Went to Time Machine, selected the disk to be a Time Machine disk. Didn't choose for the backups to be encrypted because I'd already formatted the drive to be encrypted. Clicked okay.
3. Time Machine reformatted the disk to HFS+, unencrypted, and did an unencrypted backup. WTF. Fail.
... okay, that sucked. Try again:
1. Reformatted the drive, this time to unencrypted APFS, since encrypted didn't work last time.
2. Went back to Time Machine, selected the disk, and this time chose to encrypt backups via Time Machine.
3. Time Machine reformatted the disk to HFS+, unencrypted. Fine.
4. Time Machine did a backup, but also simultaneously triggered the macOS feature that switches a drive's format from unencrypted to encrypted. This is a stupid f**king feature because it can take literally days to encrypt a drive, depending on how much data is on it, when it would be 1000 times faster to copy all the data somewhere else, reformat the drive as encrypted, and copy it back.
... okay, that sucked even worse than the first attempt to do this. Last attempt:
1. Notice that Time Machine keeps reformatting the drive to HFS+, inexplicably.
2. Search the internet to see if Time Machine even works with APFS volumes at all, find out that it doesn't, inexplicably.
3. Go to Disk Utility, reformat the drive as HFS+ encrypted. Works as expected.
4. Go to Time Machine, choose the reformatted disk. Enable "encrypted backups."
5. Everything works as expected.
I'm getting sick of this s**t. I think if Steve Jobs ran into this scenario, somebody would get fired.
You'd think Time Machine (you know, the thing made by Apple) would work with the latest Apple file system that has been around for almost 3 years now. Guess again.
So I was setting up Time Machine on a computer. I wanted my backups to be encrypted:
1. Went to Disk Utility and formatted the drive. APFS (because it's the latest thing) and encrypted. Entered a password. No problem. I've done this a dozen times over the years, albeit formatting to HFS+ because that was the latest thing at the time.
2. Went to Time Machine, selected the disk to be a Time Machine disk. Didn't choose for the backups to be encrypted because I'd already formatted the drive to be encrypted. Clicked okay.
3. Time Machine reformatted the disk to HFS+, unencrypted, and did an unencrypted backup. WTF. Fail.
... okay, that sucked. Try again:
1. Reformatted the drive, this time to unencrypted APFS, since encrypted didn't work last time.
2. Went back to Time Machine, selected the disk, and this time chose to encrypt backups via Time Machine.
3. Time Machine reformatted the disk to HFS+, unencrypted. Fine.
4. Time Machine did a backup, but also simultaneously triggered the macOS feature that switches a drive's format from unencrypted to encrypted. This is a stupid f**king feature because it can take literally days to encrypt a drive, depending on how much data is on it, when it would be 1000 times faster to copy all the data somewhere else, reformat the drive as encrypted, and copy it back.
... okay, that sucked even worse than the first attempt to do this. Last attempt:
1. Notice that Time Machine keeps reformatting the drive to HFS+, inexplicably.
2. Search the internet to see if Time Machine even works with APFS volumes at all, find out that it doesn't, inexplicably.
3. Go to Disk Utility, reformat the drive as HFS+ encrypted. Works as expected.
4. Go to Time Machine, choose the reformatted disk. Enable "encrypted backups."
5. Everything works as expected.
I'm getting sick of this s**t. I think if Steve Jobs ran into this scenario, somebody would get fired.