High Sierra's APFS optimized for flash storage & SSD, incompatible with legacy HDDs and po...

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  • Reply 21 of 53
    I can tell you right now that the attempted conversion to APFS on my 1 TB Fusion Drive failed completely and resulted in reformat and restore from Time Machine. Don't do it. It is not compatible with Fusion Drives.
    dysamoria
  • Reply 22 of 53
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    kenv55 said:
    So—what happens with my MBP 2014 w a SSD and Boot Camp on the drive? And will Parallels see Boot Camp to use as a VM? Maybe make a full VM of BC first, then delete the BC partition after making a clone of it first with Winclone, and reinstall it when APFS is compatible with BC?
    The Apple support document linked in the piece discusses Boot Camp and APFS.
  • Reply 23 of 53
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    Soli said:
    dewme said:
    gnnoni said:
    my iMac (27-inch, Late 2012; 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7, fusion drive), has the last public beta and its APFS since the first public beta, the installer did the conversión i din’t noticed the fusion drive was not used, so its running pretty well
    Interesting... I have the same setup with the 3TB fusion drive. Installing Beta 1 of High Sierra with APFS rendered my machine completely unbootable and I had to do a complete reinstall of the previous OS version (Low Sierra). Since then I've installed High Sierra beta on a 13" MacBook Pro and it worked without a hitch and the installer reformatted the SSD to APFS. I also installed High Sierra beta on a Mac Mini with a 1 TB spinner disk and it worked without a hitch and the installer formatted the hard disk to Journaled HFS+.

    I'm tempted to retry the Fusion iMac with High Sierra and make sure it uses Journaled HFS+. Or maybe I'll wait to see if Apple fixes the High Sierra Fusion issue. It's times like this that I wish the iMac had a way for the end-user to easily change/upgrade the mass storage device. 
    I'm curious why you did that when Apple has been very clear about APFS issues with Fusion Drives. Was just to see if you could beat the odds?

    You should have no issues with HFS+ and will be able to boot into Recovery Mode at any time to initiate the non-destructive conversation to APFS when Apple finally removes al the warnings from the Release Notes.
    Don't recall seeing a warning about APFS and Fusion at the time Beta 1 was released, but I'll be more careful going forward. My bad.
  • Reply 24 of 53
    Soli said:
    mubaili said:
    iMac 2017 5K automatically converted to APFS Encryption during the install. Then I formatted an external Seagate 4T hard drive to APFS Case sensitive Encryption and it works fine for storing tax documents and videos and mp3s.
    But that means your iMac only has an SSD internally, correct? That's the only time I've seen the APFS checkbox auto-selected.
    My earlier (2016?) Mac 5K has a 3TB Fusion Drive and I have seen the APFS checkbook checked on all the High Sierra betas (if I remember, correctly).  I saw it again on the beta 8 release on Aug 28. 

    I'm sure of that because I especially look to avoid any AFPS installation on my iMac Fusion drive.
  • Reply 25 of 53
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    I honestly thought that APFS worked fine with spinning hard drives, just not as optimally as SSD. I have a 2012 MacBook Pro running a new install of High Sierra, and just learned that it's still formatted as "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". I thought it was already using APFS, but wasn't noticing any filesystem improvement. This system is dog-slowwwwww.
    Well, I’m using my daughter’s old 2013 Retna model I bought her when she first went to college with upgraded HDD for the music server for my A/V system. It’s nice to know that my iPhone 7+ is actually faster, and that my 2017 iPad Pro 12.9” is a lot faster.
  • Reply 26 of 53
    anomeanome Posts: 1,533member

    Damn, I just had to have the lower disk in my Fusion Drive replaced. If I'd known there was an issue with APFS on spinning media, I might have at least checked if I could get it replaced with a second SSD.

    I don't know if we're yet in a world where we can go all SSD on everything. The cost is still a bit too high, especially in comparison with HDDs. Clearly it is going to happen at some point, but I think we might need to wait a bit longer. Apple are going to keep spinning media around to keep the entry costs low. If nothing else, the bottom end non-retina iMac will continue to ship with a hard disk. The 27s are already at Fusion drive as minimum, and I expect the retina 21s will join them at the next update. Likewise, they will at least keep the absolute bottom end Mac mini (assuming they continue to make them) with a straight HDD, so that they can keep the entry cost low. (Of course, no-one will buy these low end offerings, I'm sure.)

    watto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 53
    physguyphysguy Posts: 920member
    Working fine on my 2014 Mac Mini with straight HDD 1 TByte drive.  It did NOT convert it but all I had to do was  install from an external USB and choose to format the drive with APFS before install.  No real problems after that.  As others have points out it says 'won't convert' not 'won't work'.  It was admittedly very slow with the Beta 4 I started with by with the current Beta its much better now.
    watto_cobratipoo
  • Reply 28 of 53
    kenv55 said:
    So—what happens with my MBP 2014 w a SSD and Boot Camp on the drive? And will Parallels see Boot Camp to use as a VM? Maybe make a full VM of BC first, then delete the BC partition after making a clone of it first with Winclone, and reinstall it when APFS is compatible with BC?
    The Apple support document linked in the piece discusses Boot Camp and APFS.
    Thanks I just read it. I’m not quite sure what this means: Boot Camp doesn't support Read/Write to APFS-formatted Mac volumes. Does it mean you can only boot directly into Boot Camp? And will Parallels be able to see Boot Camp?
  • Reply 29 of 53
    ktappektappe Posts: 823member
    > drives formatted as APFS can be read and written by HFS+ formatted systems running macOS 10.12.6 or later.

    Are we positive about this? APFS read/write was announced as a feature on 10.12.0 back in October. Why would Apple specify 10.12.6 or later?
    edited August 2017
  • Reply 30 of 53
    polymniapolymnia Posts: 1,080member
    anome said:

    Damn, I just had to have the lower disk in my Fusion Drive replaced. If I'd known there was an issue with APFS on spinning media, I might have at least checked if I could get it replaced with a second SSD.

    I don't know if we're yet in a world where we can go all SSD on everything. The cost is still a bit too high, especially in comparison with HDDs. Clearly it is going to happen at some point, but I think we might need to wait a bit longer. Apple are going to keep spinning media around to keep the entry costs low. If nothing else, the bottom end non-retina iMac will continue to ship with a hard disk. The 27s are already at Fusion drive as minimum, and I expect the retina 21s will join them at the next update. Likewise, they will at least keep the absolute bottom end Mac mini (assuming they continue to make them) with a straight HDD, so that they can keep the entry cost low. (Of course, no-one will buy these low end offerings, I'm sure.)

    I think we are totally living in a world where we are ready for SSD boot drives in everything. You have to look around to even find spinning disks on Apple's products these days and their highest profile devices are SSD-only. For Apple to maintain their reputation of producing devices a cut above the competition, dropping spinning media can't come soon enough.

    Obviously, this is only for new devices. Your legacy devices will continue to function and will be upgradable to new OS for the foreseeable future. They just won't get APFS.
  • Reply 31 of 53
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    There's nothing in the FAQs or basic information pages for the non-developer beta program to test High Sierra, however, you can still go to some of the regular developer documentation to find things.

    *Disclaimer: Since everyone else, including AI, is violating Apple's NDA for beta software, I will as well.

    I found this statement in the APFS documentation site: https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/FileManagement/Conceptual/APFS_Guide/FAQ/FAQ.html

    Can I use Apple File System with my existing hard disk drive?
    Yes. Apple File System is optimized for Flash/SSD storage, but can also be used with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) and external, direct-attached storage.

    Does this mean Apple hasn't changed their documentation to reflect current capabilities? Haven't the faintest idea.

    I went through the APFS documentation website and found the api's for APFS. It obviously uses the same diskutil command so I scanned through its man page on my test MBP running with an aftermarket SSD, beta 17A352a and here's two entries I found about APFS and Fusion. I am assuming Fusion is the combination of a SSD and HDD (like everyone is asking about):

    >man diskutil

    Physical Store - An APFS Physical Store is a disk which is imported into (that is, which backs, indeed defines) an APFS Container. An APFS Container can import more than one Physical Store, e.g. for Fusion—style Containers.

    ...

    createContainer [-main] device [-secondary] [device]

    Create an empty APFS Container.  The device(s) specified become APFS Physical Stores. If you specify more than one device, a Fusion Container is created, with the performance roles assigned automatically (preferred) unless you use the -main and -secondary options, in which case, the secondary disk is assumed by APFS's performance algorithms to be on "slower" hardware.  The secondary disk is usually not solid solid state, is usually larger, and is used to store associated "auxiliary" data such as any Windows partition(s) for Boot Camp Assistant.

    In my mind this says that High Sierra can be installed on a system, like my late 2015 Retina 5K iMac with a factory 2TB Fusion drive, and run APFS. I didn't go through every instance of the word "fusion" in the man page but I'm sure it's there more than just these two times. I also noticed the comment about Boot Camp although it might only be for the assistant application.

    Does this mean Apple has finalized APFS to run on a Fusion or simple HDD drive? Only Apple knows for sure.

    john.belijahgwatto_cobrawillcropointGG1
  • Reply 32 of 53
    This maybe off subject, but it does apply to iOS/OS optimization. With 10.3 and 10.3.3 I gained around 2GB of memory storage on my iPhone 6+. Apple has done a great job at OS optimization as far as I'm concerned. I read the update thoroughly and the early trade journal reviews on what to expect. No surprises. Whatever tweaks Apple is applying to specific drives they definitely work for me. 
    watto_cobrawilliamlondon
  • Reply 33 of 53
    When I installed High Sierra Public Beta 1 on my Late-2013 iMac, I chose APFS for my 3TB Fusion Drive, and it seems to be working fine so far, all the way up to the current Public Beta. When I look in the system info, the disk is identified as a 3TB SSD. Hmm.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 34 of 53
    The support document does not say what this article claims it says. All it says is: - Flash storage will automatically be converted to APFS and users can not opt out - Hard drives and Fusion drives will not be automatically converted to APFS - Boot Camp is currently unsupported on 3TB Fusion that use APFS It is implied that this only refers to boot drives and that the user can manually choose to convert hard drives, Fusion drives and non-boot drives to APFS. In fact, the third point about 3TB Fusion drives and Boot Camp only makes sense from the context that the drive is using APFS, which, according to this article, it is not compatible with. I think some reading comprehension is in order. EDIT: How do you do line breaks in these comments LOL
    edited August 2017 watto_cobra
  • Reply 35 of 53
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    Well, okay,  here's the situation. We've got users in here saying that it doesn't work with their drive, and others saying it does.

    So. While HS is still in beta, we don't have consensus on if it works flawlessly at all. So, it will probably be disabled in HS, like eGPU support, which isn't 100% either.

    It's good that it works for some of us! However, not all, and even for some of us it works but not perfectly -- and we're the tech savvy! If it ships like this, and even as low as 10% of users have a major problem involving a reformat, there's going to be trouble in River City!

    So, it seems like an obvious choice to disable at launch, until issues surrounding it on Fusion drives and non-fusion hard drives are completely worked out. 
    welshdogwatto_cobradysamoria
  • Reply 36 of 53
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator

    kenv55 said:
    kenv55 said:
    So—what happens with my MBP 2014 w a SSD and Boot Camp on the drive? And will Parallels see Boot Camp to use as a VM? Maybe make a full VM of BC first, then delete the BC partition after making a clone of it first with Winclone, and reinstall it when APFS is compatible with BC?
    The Apple support document linked in the piece discusses Boot Camp and APFS.
    Thanks I just read it. I’m not quite sure what this means: Boot Camp doesn't support Read/Write to APFS-formatted Mac volumes. Does it mean you can only boot directly into Boot Camp? And will Parallels be able to see Boot Camp?
    If you're in Windows through Boot Camp, you won't be able to R/W to APFS. According to Parallels, version 12 can see a Boot Camp partition, but I suspect that Windows in the partition won't be able to write to APFS outside of its own container.
    kenv55watto_cobra
  • Reply 37 of 53
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    Because I had nothing else to do, I read through the diskutil command and did a (supposed) non-destructive encryption of an external SSD drive formatted as APFS with the latest public beta of High Sierra. It's running and we'll see what happens when it's done. Here's what I did. This is good news to me if it actually works.

    $ diskutil apfs encryptVolume
    Usage:  diskutil apfs encryptVolume <apfsVolumeDisk>
            -user disk|<existingCryptoUserUUID>
            [-passphrase <existingOrNewPassphrase> | -stdinpassphrase]
            where <apfsVolumeDisk> = APFS Volume DiskIdentifier
                  <existingCryptoUserUUID> = existing user
                  <existingOrNewPassphrase> = password, else interactive prompt
    Start "background" encryption of a currently-unencrypted APFS Volume. One or
    more user and password pair(s) will be able to unlock the APFS Volume; these
    user(s) must already exist on the Volume, and you must supply one of them.
    Alternatively, and only in the case of no pre-existing users, the "Disk" user
    can be automatically added. To do this (or to supply the password for the
    "Disk" user if it already exists), specify "disk" or the Disk/Volume UUID.
    A number of preflight checks are performed to prevent macOS booting problems
    if the target disk contains macOS; for example, if you have pre-existing
    Open Directory users, they must be paired with a Recovery user (such as the
    Personal Recovery Key user) as well as proper EFI boot data on the related
    Preboot Volume.
    Ownership of the affected disks is required.
    Examples: diskutil apfs encryptVolume disk5s1 -user disk
              diskutil apfs encryptVolume disk5s1 -user <UUID> -passphrase foo

    --Tried using the only user account on the external disk, which is a clone of my internal SSD. It gave an error so I guess I didn't use the proper user value <UUID>. Once it's done converting I'll see what kind of passphrase it uses.
     
    $ diskutil apfs encryptVolume disk3s1 -user disk
    Passphrase for the new "Disk" user (C24FB2EA-174D-4C66-A715-967EEB14972E):
    Repeat passphrase:
    Starting background encryption of the new "Disk" user on disk3s1
    The new "Disk" user will be the only one who has initial access to disk3s1
    The new APFS crypto user UUID will be C24FB2EA-174D-4C66-A715-967EEB14972E
    Background encryption is ongoing; see "diskutil apfs list" to see progress



  • Reply 38 of 53
    welshdogwelshdog Posts: 1,897member
    there's going to be trouble in River City!
    You don't seem old enough to me to use that quote! Nice.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 39 of 53
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator
    welshdog said:
    there's going to be trouble in River City!
    You don't seem old enough to me to use that quote! Nice.
    I was once a theater nerd -- but that was a long time ago, and about three careers past.

    The movie of it with Robert Preston and Shirley Jones came out eight years before I was born.
  • Reply 40 of 53
    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele Posts: 6,858administrator

    rob53 said:

    In my mind this says that High Sierra can be installed on a system, like my late 2015 Retina 5K iMac with a factory 2TB Fusion drive, and run APFS. I didn't go through every instance of the word "fusion" in the man page but I'm sure it's there more than just these two times. I also noticed the comment about Boot Camp although it might only be for the assistant application.

    Does this mean Apple has finalized APFS to run on a Fusion or simple HDD drive? Only Apple knows for sure.

    That's the issue, right? There's conflicting info between truly public facing info, like the support page, and the developer stuff. The developer preview still says that "some" Fusion Drives are problematic, and aren't converting regular drives at launch. 

    I'm talking with somebody at Apple I've worked with before about it this weekend. I'm hoping for more information about it.
    edited September 2017
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