Inside macOS 10.13 High Sierra: APFS benefits end users with space, speed

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  • Reply 21 of 57
    lkrupp said:
    Is the conversion to APFS automatic or does it require user action? To wit, I currently have a late 2013 iMac 14,2 with a 1TB Fusion drive running Sierra on HFS+. What happens when I install High Sierra on this machine?
    The conversion is a "nondestructive in-place upgrade" if that's what you mean. [You can go from HFS+ to APFS without losing your data, but you can't go back.]

    I think it will probably be "automatic" for boot volumes, but that's only because I haven't heard otherwise -- I think if they were going to allow High Sierra to boot from HFS+, we would know that. But I'm not 100% sure.

    EDIT: MIke's post in reply to yours above indicates that for now, it is optional.
    edited June 2017
  • Reply 22 of 57
    I had an iMac with a 1TB Fusion Drive + Boot Camp, and opting in to APFS during install killed my drive. Had to reformat, rebuild the Fusion Drive in terminal, and reinstall from Time Machine backup.

    Updated again without opting in to APFS, and its fine.

    So, I don't recommend anyone with Fusion Drive or Boot Camp partition even attempt APFS unless you know how to recover from a total data loss.
    watto_cobrawillcropointdysamoria
  • Reply 23 of 57
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    lkrupp said:
    Is the conversion to APFS automatic or does it require user action? To wit, I currently have a late 2013 iMac 14,2 with a 1TB Fusion drive running Sierra on HFS+. What happens when I install High Sierra on this machine?
    The conversion is a "nondestructive in-place upgrade" if that's what you mean. [You can from HFS+ to APFS without losing your data, but you can't go back.]

    I think it will probably be "automatic" for boot volumes, but that's only because I haven't heard otherwise -- I think if they were going to allow it to be a choice (and thus allow High Sierra to boot from HFS+), we would know that.
    It is not automatic on a boot volume. You can install and boot from High Sierra on HFS+.  The install and 'covert to APFS in place' is an option, it is nondestructive so easily done over a clone of your Sierra drive (Or the real thing but make a back up clone first!).  You can also do a post installation non-destructive conversion from HFS+ to APFS after the fact by booting into the High Sierra Recover Volume an d using Disk Utilities .  I have done all of the above so not guessing.  Indeed you can do additional installations over the top from the recovery partition.  On one Mac I had a few issues such as Maps displaying garbage.  I reinstalled again and it cured it.  That particular Mac was a test onto HFS+ not APFS but not sure if that is coincidence or just a glitched installation in the first place.  Remember Carbon Copy Cloner is your friend in all this!
    edited June 2017 dysamoriafastasleep
  • Reply 24 of 57
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    I had an iMac with a 1TB Fusion Drive + Boot Camp, and opting in to APFS during install killed my drive. Had to reformat, rebuild the Fusion Drive in terminal, and reinstall from Time Machine backup.

    Updated again without opting in to APFS, and its fine.

    So, I don't recommend anyone with Fusion Drive or Boot Camp partition even attempt APFS unless you know how to recover from a total data loss.
    It's a known issue that some 3TB Fusion macs 'may' have issue with Boot Camp under APFS, I've not heard mention of a 1 TB Fusion either way.  My best advice is keep Windows on a separate bootable SSD entirely and not use the partition method.  
    dysamoria
  • Reply 25 of 57
    tdknoxtdknox Posts: 82member
    melgross said:
    The only thing that bothers me is the file copy. When I copy a file, I'm doing it for a reason. I want an exact copy. If I alter one, I don't necessarily want the other altered. If one gets corrupted, rare, but it does happen, I want the other pristine one to replace it. I'm not sure how this will work.

    its a reason why I'm not fond of de-duping. My copies are intentional.
    I don't think you understand how this works.

    1) Make a "copy". Yes, this is not a true copy. This points back to the original.

    2) Make changes to the file, either the original or the "copy".

    3) APFS will record the changes and only make the changes necessary to the appropriate file. And data not changed will be unaltered in either file, but there will be a list of changes made. 

    So, to sum up, if you make a copy of a file and then change either file, the file that you changed will show the changes while the other file will not. In the meantime, data that is not changed between them will continue to be shared. But reading either file will result in the correct data being read.

    How is this a bad thing?
    williamlondonSoliwatto_cobradysamoriaelijahgfastasleep
  • Reply 26 of 57
    glindonglindon Posts: 22member
    You'd think that filesystem access was fully abstracted for applications, handled entirely by the OS, so it's strange that MS Outlook 2016 is having this issue. They must've done something proprietary, which is par for the course for them.
    There’s been issues for a long time with case sensitive volumes not working with some software. Sadly in my tests APFS rendered most of my 3rd party logic plugins incompatible. Now it’s possible that High Sierra might have been responsible but I’ve run into issues on external drives with APFS and plugins in Sierra. 
  • Reply 27 of 57
    dave marshdave marsh Posts: 349member
    elijahg said:
    Will be interesting to see if Alsoft brings out a new version of Diskwarrior for APFS, as its so different from HFS.
    I contacted Alsoft about this, and they said they would be updating DiskWarrior when Apple released APFS for the Mac.
    williamlondonelijahg
  • Reply 28 of 57
    ctwisectwise Posts: 48member
    melgross said:
    The only thing that bothers me is the file copy. When I copy a file, I'm doing it for a reason. I want an exact copy. If I alter one, I don't necessarily want the other altered. If one gets corrupted, rare, but it does happen, I want the other pristine one to replace it. I'm not sure how this will work.

    its a reason why I'm not fond of de-duping. My copies are intentional.
    It's a Copy-On-Write (COW) filesystem. Most of the modern filesystems are. When you copy a file it just moves some pointers around instead of copying the data to a new location. The data isn't physically copied until you modify it.
    fastasleep
  • Reply 29 of 57
    wonkothesanewonkothesane Posts: 1,717member

    I wonder if older Macs where Sierra runs through a patch will support APFS. Here, one machine in question is a 2009 MBP. 
    I have some concerns about this. I wouldn't expect it.
    In a different thread it would appear that it works just fine: https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/200435/high-sierra-runs-on-all-sierra-capable-hardware-starts-process-to-kill-32-bit-apps/p2

    post by MacPro. 

    Which makes me wonder: how can I link to a specific post in a different thread?
  • Reply 30 of 57
    tdknox said:
    melgross said:
    The only thing that bothers me is the file copy. When I copy a file, I'm doing it for a reason. I want an exact copy. If I alter one, I don't necessarily want the other altered. If one gets corrupted, rare, but it does happen, I want the other pristine one to replace it. I'm not sure how this will work.

    its a reason why I'm not fond of de-duping. My copies are intentional.
    I don't think you understand how this works.

    1) Make a "copy". Yes, this is not a true copy. This points back to the original.

    2) Make changes to the file, either the original or the "copy".

    3) APFS will record the changes and only make the changes necessary to the appropriate file. And data not changed will be unaltered in either file, but there will be a list of changes made. 

    So, to sum up, if you make a copy of a file and then change either file, the file that you changed will show the changes while the other file will not. In the meantime, data that is not changed between them will continue to be shared. But reading either file will result in the correct data being read.

    How is this a bad thing?
    The concern is if a shared (and unchanged) portion gets corrupted.  If you have a true copy, any file corruption is limited to just one file--not both.  If APFS offers an option to create a true copy, you could override the default of having copies share disk sectors with only pointers to changes not shared by both file copies.

    Ordinarily, the efficiency of APFS pointers are a good thing.  However, there may be situations where it would be s bad thing not to have a true copy.
  • Reply 31 of 57
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    ctwise said:
    melgross said:
    The only thing that bothers me is the file copy. When I copy a file, I'm doing it for a reason. I want an exact copy. If I alter one, I don't necessarily want the other altered. If one gets corrupted, rare, but it does happen, I want the other pristine one to replace it. I'm not sure how this will work.

    its a reason why I'm not fond of de-duping. My copies are intentional.
    It's a Copy-On-Write (COW) filesystem. Most of the modern filesystems are. When you copy a file it just moves some pointers around instead of copying the data to a new location. The data isn't physically copied until you modify it.
    Based on the Apple documentation, it's not even fully copied then. Just the changed bits.
  • Reply 32 of 57
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    tdknox said:
    1) Make a "copy". Yes, this is not a true copy. This points back to the original.
    2) Make changes to the file, either the original or the "copy".
    3) APFS will record the changes and only make the changes necessary to the appropriate file. And data not changed will be unaltered in either file, but there will be a list of changes made. 
    So when you make a copy, the new file is just an "alias" (not, but we don't have a word for it yet). But when you make changes to the new file, it becomes an "alias plus changes" file? But what happens if you make changes to the original? The "alias" will have to be completely rewritten as the new file anyway, or a second "alias" will need to be made, but for the original file, so it's an "anti-alias alias." It seems needlessly confusing.
  • Reply 33 of 57
    teknishnteknishn Posts: 38member
    melgross said:
    The only thing that bothers me is the file copy. When I copy a file, I'm doing it for a reason. I want an exact copy. If I alter one, I don't necessarily want the other altered. If one gets corrupted, rare, but it does happen, I want the other pristine one to replace it. I'm not sure how this will work.

    its a reason why I'm not fond of de-duping. My copies are intentional.
    De-dup works at the bit level not simply file names. If you copy a file, make changes to copy in a separate place, but still save as same name.... it will now be different at the bit level and not de-dup. 
  • Reply 34 of 57
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    tdknox said:
    1) Make a "copy". Yes, this is not a true copy. This points back to the original.
    2) Make changes to the file, either the original or the "copy".
    3) APFS will record the changes and only make the changes necessary to the appropriate file. And data not changed will be unaltered in either file, but there will be a list of changes made. 
    So when you make a copy, the new file is just an "alias" (not, but we don't have a word for it yet). But when you make changes to the new file, it becomes an "alias plus changes" file? But what happens if you make changes to the original? The "alias" will have to be completely rewritten as the new file anyway, or a second "alias" will need to be made, but for the original file, so it's an "anti-alias alias." It seems needlessly confusing.
    As far as I understand it, if the original file is altered, there are two cases.

    1) The original is modified, and the "alias" is as well, saving the original bits to its container.
    2) The original remains unmodified, and a new pointer is made.

    Keep in mind that this is all on the same volume. Aliases in this case can't span volumes, logical or not. Moving a file to a different volume will still make a conventional copy.
  • Reply 35 of 57
    I installed this on my 2.9GHz touch id MacBook Pro and  it Kernel panic'd before the login ever completed.  Going back was a complete restore from backup.

    Did I miss something since so many people seem to have it working?
  • Reply 36 of 57
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    I installed this on my 2.9GHz touch id MacBook Pro and  it Kernel panic'd before the login ever completed.  Going back was a complete restore from backup.

    Did I miss something since so many people seem to have it working?
    Nope. Beta. Happens. 


    Something similar happened to us as well, in the course of article production.
    dysamoria
  • Reply 37 of 57
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member

    I wonder if older Macs where Sierra runs through a patch will support APFS. Here, one machine in question is a 2009 MBP. 
    I have some concerns about this. I wouldn't expect it.
    In a different thread it would appear that it works just fine: https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/200435/high-sierra-runs-on-all-sierra-capable-hardware-starts-process-to-kill-32-bit-apps/p2

    post by MacPro. 

    Which makes me wonder: how can I link to a specific post in a different thread?
    My test was a 2010 MBP so not sure about a 2009 to be honest.
  • Reply 38 of 57
    loquiturloquitur Posts: 137member

    I wonder if older Macs where Sierra runs through a patch will support APFS. Here, one machine in question is a 2009 MBP. 
    I have some concerns about this. I wouldn't expect it.
    In a different thread it would appear that it works just fine: https://forums.appleinsider.com/discussion/200435/high-sierra-runs-on-all-sierra-capable-hardware-starts-process-to-kill-32-bit-apps/p2

    post by MacPro. 

    Which makes me wonder: how can I link to a specific post in a different thread?
    The posts by MacPro in the other appleinsider thread refer to 2010 machines which are already on the official Sierra-supported list.
    For older machines like 2008/(early- and mid-) 2009 MBPs there are still issues with High Sierra.   For example, folks report that the High Sierra
    install first updates the EFI firmware to support APFS upon boot.  So this may require EFI firmware hacking at a minimum, as Apple
    is not likely to release firmware updates for unsupported gear.  Details unfolding at:  https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/macos-10-12-sierra-unsupported-macs-thread.1977128/ ;
    edited June 2017 wonkothesane
  • Reply 39 of 57
    foljsfoljs Posts: 390member
    melgross said:
    The only thing that bothers me is the file copy. When I copy a file, I'm doing it for a reason. I want an exact copy. If I alter one, I don't necessarily want the other altered. If one gets corrupted, rare, but it does happen, I want the other pristine one to replace it. I'm not sure how this will work.

    its a reason why I'm not fond of de-duping. My copies are intentional.
    You're doing it wrong then.

    "Redundancy" on a single drive is not a replacement for backups (plural: as you should not only backup, but backup to more than one location).

    (And of course if you actually alter the one "copy" of the file, APFS wont alter the other -- they're not hard links, they're just deduplicated until altered, and then they end up as two different copies, like "copy on write").



    edited June 2017 dysamoria
  • Reply 40 of 57
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    foljs said:
    You're doing it wrong then. "Redundancy" on a single drive is not a replacement for backups (plural: as you should not only backup, but backup to more than one location).
    You’ve never made a copy of an file so that you could make changes to the copy without worrying about screwing something up and accidentally working destructively rather than non-destructively? Are you so accustomed to a nondestructive workflow that it didn’t occur to you, or are we just so old that you were never raised outside one?  :p
    lorin schultz
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