APFS vs HFS+ on External Drives

[Christian Schumacher]

APFS vs HFS+ Which one is "better" for updated hardware? Now that we have support on Windows for APFS (Paragon), and also support on legacy Intel Mac OS > 10.13, I would like to know if anyone could tell me if there is any reason to continue to use HFS+? I ask mostly for day-to-day use of external hard drives, not only for backing up but for running files off of them as well. Both Thunderbolt and USB, any input will be appreciated.

 

[Krevnik]

If it’s an HDD, I’d probably use HFS+, because copy on write will fragment that thing over time. https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/43043-using-apfs-on-hdds-and-why-you-might-not-want-to/

For SSDs, APFS all day. For me, the killer feature is being able to add/remove volumes for testing without having to repartition using the APFS container. But copy on write is also quite useful on SSDs where fragmentation isn’t nearly as much a performance killer.

 

[Christian Schumacher]

If it’s an HDD, I’d probably use HFS+, because copy on write will fragment that thing over time. https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/43043-using-apfs-on-hdds-and-why-you-might-not-want-to/

For SSDs, APFS all day. For me, the killer feature is being able to add/remove volumes for testing without having to repartition using the APFS container. But copy on write is also quite useful on SSDs where fragmentation isn’t nearly as much a performance killer.

That's good input, thanks Krevnik! I had this week an external SSD HFS+ to act up on me real good, it suddenly went the way of the dodo bringing 3 computers to their knees with a kernel panic, changed protocols, connections, enclosures...all these when connected to it...kernel panic...SSD is in a drawer now

 

[zarathu]

HFS+ is not designed to deal with SSD’s. You nee APFS if you are using an SSD.

 

[MarkC426]

I have had all my internal ssd's (except MacOS volume) as HFS+ for many years without issue.
However I literally never delete anything.

 

[Fishrrman]

"HFS+ is not designed to deal with SSD’s. You nee APFS if you are using an SSD."

This is NONSENSE.

Apple-installed SSDs were using HFS+ long before they came up with APFS.
As were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of 3rd-party SSDs.

HFS+ works just fine on SSDs ... at least on mine.

If you are using platter-based hard drives, use HFS+ (Mac OS extended with journaling enabled, GUID partition format).
APFS can cause platter-based drives to become overly-fragmented -- you will hear the drive "thrashing" on and on.

With SSDs, use APFS for boot drives (of course, that's what the OS wants).
For data drives, you can use either APFS or HFS+.

I prefer HFS+ for all data drives because Mac drive utilities can still handle them.
For APFS drives, not so much...

 

[Krevnik]

"HFS+ is not designed to deal with SSD’s. You nee APFS if you are using an SSD."

This is NONSENSE.

I don’t see anyone that made such an argument?

 

[BigMcGuire]

I don’t see anyone that made such an argument?

It was post #4 -

APFS vs HFS+ on External Drives

HFS+ is not designed to deal with SSD’s. You nee APFS if you are using an SSD.

forums.macrumors.com

I formatted my 4TB external spinner for Time Machine with AFPS because I love how much faster it does Time Machine backups. I wonder if I’ll pay for that over time? Doh. Oh well, time to start saving up for an SSD Time Machine Drive.

 

[Krevnik]

It was post #4 -

Hmm, I didn’t realize MacRumors outright “removed” ignored posts from the stream instead of collapsing them. That doesn’t seem like great design.

I formatted my 4TB external spinner for Time Machine with AFPS because I love how much faster it does Time Machine backups. I wonder if I’ll pay for that over time? Doh. Oh well, time to start saving up for an SSD Time Machine Drive.

It depends. It will fragment over time due to copy-on-write. For a backup drive this is probably less important, but can lead to some gnarly seek time lag later on down the road. How long depends a lot on some variables, so it’s hard to give any concrete details.