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Upgrading to 10.13 but keeping the HFS file-system?

macstatic

macstatic

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Oct 21, 2005
2,025
165
Norway
Is it possible to upgrade (from MacOS 10.12) to 10.13 and NOT have the drive's file-system changed to APFS?
I ask because I'm in the midst of upgrading my OS, but have been testing things out on a separate SSD for testing purposes before I fully commit with my main boot drive, and I've run into massive issues involving reboots, loads of error messages and then not being able to boot into 10.13 at all!
After booting into recovery mode (CMD-R while booting) I finally got to reinstall 10.13 without deleting the contents (apps, users) on that drive. I've had to do that 3 times now, and I think I finally got it working.

Then I re-read an earlier thread of mine where I was told not to let 10.13 change my boot drive into APFS (from HFS) as that could cause issues -perhaps that's what I've just experienced. Apparently, if your drive has multiple partitions where at least one of the other partitions were HFS, then the boot drive would also stay HFS.

But..... if I only have a single partition on the boot drive (currently running 10.12), is there any way to prevent the 10.13 upgrade from converting it to APFS?
 
Thanks.
That information will come in handy if/when I commit to upgrading my main boot-SSD from 10.11 to 10.13.
What actually are the benefits supposed to be with APFS? What would I be potentially missing out on if I stay with HFS and what would be the benefits of the latter?

My only reason for looking into bypassing it is because of all those installation problems, and suspecting it may have something to do with APFS.
 
macstatic said:
Thanks.
That information will come in handy if/when I commit to upgrading my main boot-SSD from 10.11 to 10.13.
What actually are the benefits supposed to be with APFS? What would I be potentially missing out on if I stay with HFS and what would be the benefits of the latter?

My only reason for looking into bypassing it is because of all those installation problems, and suspecting it may have something to do with APFS.
Click to expand...

I’m using High Sierra 10.13.6 on a HFS+ Mac OS Extended Journaled SSD drive. It’s possible to run High Sierra under HFS+ From Sierra 10.12.6 I upgraded to High Sierra and retained the HFS+ format. I still need the HFS+ due to my daily work. I use Time Machine and DiskWarrior as these apps don’t work with APFS format. I think both formats are good and just depends on the needs of the user. They say APFS runs better on SSDs and HFS+ format is good with mechanical drives.

Here is an article on how to install High Sierra retaining the HFS+ format
malcont.net

How to upgrade macOS to High Sierra without filesystem change

During the installation of developer and beta versions of macOS High Sierra, user was asked if he/she wants to "upgrade file system to APFS". With the final (17A365) version of High Sierra, such question is no longer displayed. It is however still possible to avoid filesystem conversion and keep...
malcont.net malcont.net

Comparison Benchmarks between HFS+ and APFS
malcont.net

APFS vs HFS+: benchmarks on 2017 MacBook Pro with macOS High Sierra - malcont.net

APFS vs HFS+: benchmarks performed on 2017 MacBook Pro with NVMe SSD - including single and multi-threaded throughput and filesystem latency tests. Software used: dd, ioping, Blackmagic Disk Speed Test, sysbench, blogbench, Bonnie++
malcont.net malcont.net

HGHSierra_About_Scrn.jpg
 
macstatic said:
My only reason for looking into bypassing it is because of all those installation problems, and suspecting it may have something to do with APFS.
Click to expand...
You need to track down the source of all those problems. They're not common when installing macOS and aren't inherently problems related to APFS. If you post the output of the "Your computer was restarted because of a problem" reports in your original thread, that may reveal what's going on. Since you upgraded the operating system, it's probably because of some outdated software.
 
Sure.
I expected that info to come in handy so I saved it. Here's the relevant info from both the error report I got the first time, then the relevant parts from after having installed the final security update:

*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 2 caller 0xffffff801489e7b3): "setTimeoutFunc already 0xffffff8040afea40, 0xffffff8040b1c9e0"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-4570.71.2/iokit/Kernel/IOTimerEventSource.cpp:210
Backtrace (CPU 2), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff82cd223b20 : 0xffffff801426c1c6
0xffffff82cd223b70 : 0xffffff8014395274
0xffffff82cd223bb0 : 0xffffff8014387544
0xffffff82cd223c20 : 0xffffff801421e1e0
0xffffff82cd223c40 : 0xffffff801426bc3c
0xffffff82cd223d70 : 0xffffff801426b9fc
0xffffff82cd223dd0 : 0xffffff801489e7b3
0xffffff82cd223df0 : 0xffffff801489e88e
0xffffff82cd223e10 : 0xffffff7f964a149e
0xffffff82cd223e30 : 0xffffff801489eebc
0xffffff82cd223ea0 : 0xffffff801489ede6
0xffffff82cd223ed0 : 0xffffff80142a5844
0xffffff82cd223f40 : 0xffffff80142a53a5
0xffffff82cd223fa0 : 0xffffff801421d557
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.SiliconImage.driver.Si3132r5(1.7.5)[E1C9FF8E-C957-53E9-D369-EADC52E14E7C]@0xffffff7f9646d000->0xffffff7f964acfff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIParallelFamily(3.0.0)[03A938BC-577B-3D3D-9790-66F11365E3FB]@0xffffff7f94a7c000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[AEA4C7F5-CCB0-338B-B471-CF28A9792522]@0xffffff7f94a94000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:
Not yet set

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 17.7.0
Click to expand...


*** Panic Report ***
panic(cpu 0 caller 0xffffff801049f003): "setTimeoutFunc already 0xffffff803c50f720, 0xffffff803c533510"@/BuildRoot/Library/Caches/com.apple.xbs/Sources/xnu/xnu-4570.71.73/iokit/Kernel/IOTimerEventSource.cpp:210
Backtrace (CPU 0), Frame : Return Address
0xffffff82d7213b20 : 0xffffff800fe6ce56
0xffffff82d7213b70 : 0xffffff800ff96434
0xffffff82d7213bb0 : 0xffffff800ff88604
0xffffff82d7213c20 : 0xffffff800fe1ee60
0xffffff82d7213c40 : 0xffffff800fe6c8cc
0xffffff82d7213d70 : 0xffffff800fe6c68c
0xffffff82d7213dd0 : 0xffffff801049f003
0xffffff82d7213df0 : 0xffffff801049f0de
0xffffff82d7213e10 : 0xffffff7f920b649e
0xffffff82d7213e30 : 0xffffff801049f70c
0xffffff82d7213ea0 : 0xffffff801049f636
0xffffff82d7213ed0 : 0xffffff800fea6a54
0xffffff82d7213f40 : 0xffffff800fea65b5
0xffffff82d7213fa0 : 0xffffff800fe1e557
Kernel Extensions in backtrace:
com.SiliconImage.driver.Si3132r5(1.7.5)[E1C9FF8E-C957-53E9-D369-EADC52E14E7C]@0xffffff7f92082000->0xffffff7f920c1fff
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOSCSIParallelFamily(3.0.0)[03A938BC-577B-3D3D-9790-66F11365E3FB]@0xffffff7f9067c000
dependency: com.apple.iokit.IOPCIFamily(2.9)[FA4F25DF-5808-3E01-9E69-72D9BDE59FE9]@0xffffff7f90694000

BSD process name corresponding to current thread: kernel_task

Mac OS version:
Not yet set

Kernel version:
Darwin Kernel Version 17.7.0
Click to expand...
 
macstatic said:
Sure.
I expected that info to come in handy so I saved it. Here's the relevant info from both the error report I got the first time, then the relevant parts from after having installed the final security update:
Click to expand...
The SiliconImage driver is causing your panic. Having two threads open for the same topic is confusing.
forums.macrumors.com

10.13 and SiliconImage 3132???

Is it the end of the line for those extremely cheap eSATA cards? 10.13 crashes instantly when those extensions are installed. Anyway to resurrect those cards on 10.13? Thanks.
forums.macrumors.com forums.macrumors.com
 
Thanks for locating the error.
What should I do now? Is it simply a matter of putting the driver in the trash? Is there a specific location for hardware drivers or do I just have to search the computer until I find it?

I no longer get any error messages when booting into 10.13 (I just tried) but if I go to the Security & Privacy system preference it looks like this:
cant allow -security prefpane.png

If I click on the "Allow" button (next to "Some system software was blocked from loading") nothing happens, and it looks the same after rebooting.
I assume all those other apps which were blocked are still disabled (I took screenshots of these in another thread), but I have no idea what they're for.
 
macstatic said:
Thanks for locating the error.
What should I do now? Is it simply a matter of putting the driver in the trash? Is there a specific location for hardware drivers or do I just have to search the computer until I find it?

I no longer get any error messages when booting into 10.13 (I just tried) but if I go to the Security & Privacy system preference it looks like this:
View attachment 914730
If I click on the "Allow" button (next to "Some system software was blocked from loading") nothing happens, and it looks the same after rebooting.
I assume all those other apps which were blocked are still disabled (I took screenshots of these in another thread), but I have no idea what they're for.
Click to expand...
The extension should be in /Library/Extensions. I don't know exactly what it's named.
 
Found it, so I moved all its contents over to a new, empty folder on the desktop and rebooted. But the Security & Privacy system preferences still tells me that something is blocked (again, pressing the "Allow" button does nothing):
empty kext folder, still errorsn.png

I also chose to uninstall Little Snitch, then install it again (which made a file named "LittleSnitch.kext" appear there).

I noticed that there's also another folder which might be relevant:
/System/Library/Extensions/

It's quite large (around 370 files, many of them being KEXT files) -perhaps the majority of these have been pre-installed by the OS itself, but I did find a file named "SiliconImage3132r5.kext" so is this something I can remove, which might be the source of my problems?

I agree that having two discussion threads on the same subject is confusing. I started the other thread (10.13 upgrade problems -security issues?) first, then started this thread to specifically adress the APFS issue and also included the relevant upgrade issues here. But you're absolutely right.
 
Well, I tried it all again (on that same SSD for testing), by first reformatting the drive with standard HFS+, then installed MacOS 10.12 from scratch followed by all the final security updates etc.
Then I ran the MacOS 10.13 installer from the command line as explained in the link in posting #4 so as to keep using HFS+. And finally upgrading with all the security updates and so on.
This time I had no issues! 👍 :)
 
Last edited:
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