APFS - Yay or Nay?

[knightjp]

What is the general consensus about Apple's new APFS file system?

There are reports of it being slower than the previous HFS. Some actually say that it is faster. I'm not a developer so I do not know what is the basic benefit of APFS.
Also whenever I use the "diskutil list" command in my terminal, I find the list quite confusing. Far more than the standard HFS.
Is it possible to use High Sierra without APFS?

 

[Dogbreath]

I am under the impression that if your Mac has a spinning platter hard drive, HS will not convert your drive to the APFS file system. Someone please correct me if that is not accurate.

 

[knightjp]

I am under the impression that if your Mac has a spinning platter hard drive, HS will not convert your drive to the APFS file system. Someone please correct me if that is not accurate.

I can say for certain that it will. Though not automatically. I am not certain, but from what I've read online, the only drives that will be converted during the installation of HS are the SSDs where the OS is being installed.

From my own experience, I have an SSD where the OS is installed and one ordinary spinning Drive that I use to store my valuable data. By this way I can install the OS any amount of times and I do not loose anything.
So right now I'm running High Sierra and both drives are converted to APFS. The SSD was converted during the installation and the other one, I used disk utility to convert it. Everything works fine.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

What is the general consensus about Apple's new APFS file system?

There are reports of it being slower than the previous HFS. Some actually say that it is faster. I'm not a developer so I do not know what is the basic benefit of APFS.
Also whenever I use the "diskutil list" command in my terminal, I find the list quite confusing. Far more than the standard HFS.
Is it possible to use High Sierra without APFS?

Here's a blog entry that lists some findings from a few reliable sources on APFS speeds vs HFS+. The short answer is that "it depends".
APFS Benchmarks

As for if it is "possible" to use High Sierra without APFS? If you have an HDD, yes. If an SSD, there's not much information out there. High Sierra will automatically convert an SSD to APFS and there's no apparent way to not do this. I started to post an idea I had to work around it, but then thought it best to not even speculate. APFS is clearly not quite ready for prime-time. There have been problems with 3rd party SSDs, with OWC's Aura line for 2013-and-onwards MacBook Airs and Mac Pro in particular acknowledged by OWC. Some games, apps, and utilities are not working with APFS-formatted volumes, though that's really more of a problem with those apps than APFS itself.

Speaking for myself, I'm running High Sierra just fine on my MacBook Air with the original Apple SSD, and on a Mac mini running an OWC Mercury Electra SSD. My iMac has a Mercury Electra, but also has an HDD in it, and while I'm not using it configured as a Fusion drive, I'm not willing to try High Sierra on it until Apple has APFS in a more reliable state, especially since I have a broader range of apps and utilities on it. I don't have any good reason to believe that I would have any issues, outside of any apps that may need updating, but I don't have a good reason to rush into it either.

Whether or not YOU should upgrade to High Sierra depends on what Mac you have; what drive you have; what apps you rely on; and your usage scenarios.

 

[pigoo3]

APFS is clearly not quite ready for prime-time.

Great advice. May be better to wait for the 1st or 2nd High Sierra update to get all/most of the bugs knocked out.

- Nick

 

[knightjp]

Here's a blog entry that lists some findings from a few reliable sources on APFS speeds vs HFS+. The short answer is that "it depends".
APFS Benchmarks

As for if it is "possible" to use High Sierra without APFS? If you have an HDD, yes. If an SSD, there's not much information out there. High Sierra will automatically convert an SSD to APFS and there's no apparent way to not do this. I started to post an idea I had to work around it, but then thought it best to not even speculate.

There is definitely a way..
https://derflounder.wordpress.com/2017/09/26/using-the-macos-high-sierra-os-installers-startosinstall-tool-to-avoid-apfs-conversion/

 

[knightjp]

Great advice. May be better to wait for the 1st or 2nd High Sierra update to get all/most of the bugs knocked out.

- Nick

So far.. I'm running High Sierra on a Kingston SSD with a backup Western Digital drive. Both converted to APFS and no issues to speak of yet. I'm not a developer or coder and I'm sure there are others who can give better and more technical opinions on it.

 

[Rod]

So I'm running HS on a 2016 MBP Retina and although I am not qualified to speak to the issues related to HDD compared to SSD I think I can say it is marginally faster than Sierra on my 500Gb SSD. Definitely not slower.

 

[MacInWin]

I'm with Rod. My mid-2015 MBP is marginally faster with HS. My CCC backup is to an HFS+ external SSD. I'm holding off on changing that to APFS for a while. No real reason, just that there is no compelling reason not to go slow.