Introducing Apple File System (APFS)

[chrfr]

Nothing written or spoken by Apple (or shouted in red text) goes against the expectation that 10.11.x will gain limited support for APFS.

You're simply ignoring history. There is no reason to expect that Apple will add new features in 10.11.x once 10.12 ships, never mind a year later when 10.13 ships. Apple could easily have chosen to support the Macs it orphans with 10.12, but opted not to do so. Adding APFS into 10.11.x means that Apple would then have to maintain 10.13 and support all those 8+ year old computers still running 10.11.x. Apple doesn't even include all the security updates that 10.11 receives in 10.10.5 and 10.9.5.
Again:

• Apple did not back port HFS+ support into OSes earlier than Mac OS 8.1.
• Apple did not back port iCloud support to 10.6.
• Apple did not add iCloud Drive support to iOS 7 or earlier (or OS X prior to 10.10).

So conversely to your assertion: nothing written or spoken by Apple goes against the expectation that 10.11.x will never gain any support for APFS.
Nothing Apple has done indicates that they will ever add support into 10.11.x. Their developer statements would indicate support in 10.11.x was forthcoming if that were the case that it was planned.

 

[grahamperrin]

You're simply ignoring history.

No. Please offer an alternative argument, one that does not begin with a false assumption.

 

[chrfr]

No. Please offer an alternative argument, one that does not begin with a false assumption.

Ok, I'll retract my first sentence. Nothing else I wrote is based on that, but you've ignored my points repeatedly.
You've offered no basis for your assertion aside from the fact that you think it's unlikely that Apple will want to stop supporting users of old computers.

 

[jameslmoser]

I agree with chrfr, it is extremely unlikely apple will back port support to 10.11.* for APFS. I'm betting Sierra doesn't get full support for it either. When 10.13 is released it will probably have significant changes to things like Time Machines, versions, etc which really take advantage of it, but I doubt Sierra will even be able to.

I'll be surprised if Sierra can even ever boot from it.

 

[grahamperrin]

Begun in Ars Technica OpenForum:

… backward-compatible with 10.11 El Capitan but not older. Anything else?

Two months and one hundred posts later, did anyone there dispute that interpretation?

you've ignored my points repeatedly

Yet another false assumption.

It may be easier to consider the meanings of what was said and written by Apple people if focus can shift to those things … instead of me.

 

[chrfr]

It may be easier to consider the meanings of what was said and written by Apple people if focus can shift to those things … instead of me.

No, it's utterly pointless to discuss this further with you.

 

[jameslmoser]

Begun in Ars Technica OpenForum:

Two months and one hundred posts later, did anyone there dispute that interpretation?

Just because they were probably working on it during El Capitan, so its possible to mount in El Capitan, doesn't mean apple is going to update El Capitan to work with it. If for some reason they do I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was read only support, but I still think thats unlikely. They were probably working with it during Yosemite, so they probably had it working to some extent under Yosemite, too... but there is probably 0% chance Yosemite will be updated to work with it.

 

[grahamperrin]

… 0% chance Yosemite will be updated to work with it.

Perfect. Not the exact words, but that's entirely consistent with what was said at WWDC. Without a Mac (right now) I can't replay the video but there was laughter from the audience when Eric Tamura joked about not taking things back too far.

El Capitan is not as far back as Yosemite and "… please do not take an Apple File System instance all the way back to OS X Yosemite or earlier. …".

 

[maflynn]

doesn't mean apple is going to update El Capitan to work with it

No, especially given apple's annual update. Its an experimental status right now, and once its goes gold, another version of mac OS will be out at that point. Apple has a long history of not updating legacy systems with new features.

 

[grahamperrin]

Was APFS removed for the release candidate? Apple indicated they were not ready to offer this officially until 2017. Some speculated they only enabled it temporarily for dev testing.

I don't have a golden master but from today's https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1995840/ I assume that – as expected – APFS is a developer preview technology in the recent golden masters, and will be a DP in Sierra when Sierra is released.

 

[/V\acpower]

Apple has a long history of not updating legacy systems with new features.

Well, technically you could argue that Apple is actually updating legacy operating systems with new features in the form of free updates. In a way, macOS Sierra is an update to El Capitan. It's still the same system, just with new features.

 

[grahamperrin]

@Takuro Apple said (and wrote) that APFS will be available as a developer preview technology in macOS Sierra once it finally ships this fall.

Here now with a golden master (not from Apple, but good enough for my purposes):

sh-3.2$ date ; sw_vers
Thu 15 Sep 2016 03:05:55 BST
ProductName:    Mac OS X
ProductVersion:    10.12
BuildVersion:    16A319
sh-3.2$ diskutil listfilesystems
Formattable file systems

These file system personalities can be used for erasing and partitioning.
When specifying a personality as a parameter to a verb, case is not considered.
Certain common aliases (also case-insensitive) are listed below as well.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PERSONALITY                     USER VISIBLE NAME                             
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APFS                            APFS                                         
ExFAT                           ExFAT                                         
Free Space                      Free Space                                   
  (or) free
MS-DOS                          MS-DOS (FAT)                                 
MS-DOS FAT12                    MS-DOS (FAT12)                               
MS-DOS FAT16                    MS-DOS (FAT16)                               
MS-DOS FAT32                    MS-DOS (FAT32)                               
  (or) fat32
HFS+                            Mac OS Extended                               
Case-sensitive HFS+             Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive)             
  (or) hfsx
Case-sensitive Journaled HFS+   Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)   
  (or) jhfsx
Journaled HFS+                  Mac OS Extended (Journaled)                   
  (or) jhfs+
sh-3.2$ diskutil apfs
Usage:  diskutil [quiet] ap[fs] <verb> <options>
        where <verb> is as follows:

     list              (Show status of all current APFS Containers)
     create            (Create a new APFS Container with one APFS Volume)
     createContainer   (Create a new empty APFS Container)
     deleteContainer   (Delete an APFS Container and reformat old disks to HFS)
     resizeContainer   (Resize an APFS Container and its disk space usage)
     addVolume         (Export a new APFS Volume from an APFS Container)
     eraseVolume       (Erase contents of, but keep, an APFS Volume)
     deleteVolume      (Remove an APFS Volume from its APFS Container)

diskutil apfs <verb> with no options will provide help on that verb

sh-3.2$ diskutil apfs list
WARNING:  You are using a pre-release version of the Apple File System called
          APFS which is meant for evaluation and development purposes only.
          Files stored on APFS volumes may not be accessible in future releases
          of macOS.  You should back up all of your data before using APFS and
          regularly back up data while using APFS, including before upgrading
          to future releases of macOS.
You can pass the "-IHaveBeenWarnedThatAPFSIsPreReleaseAndThatIMayLoseData"
option between the "APFS" verb and the APFS sub-verb to bypass this message.
Proceed? (y/N) y
No APFS Containers
sh-3.2$

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

-IHaveBeenWarnedThatAPFSIsPreReleaseAndThatIMayLoseData

Heh.

 

[grahamperrin]

Heh.

It's not novel, the warning was present from the outset (in June).

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

It's not novel, the warning was present from the outset (in June).

That doesn't make it any less fun.

 

[grahamperrin]

File system development testing, fun?

Seriously, I do hope that enough people will be willing and able to aggressively and rigorously test whatever will be offered by Apple in the months ahead.

Bang the drum for verifiable integrity of data; if that's not in the first release of APFS, there'll be great disappointment.

(I have a peripheral interest, but since I jumped ship, I'll not be amongst the serious testers of APFS. My interests are more elsewhere, https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/23443904 and so on.)

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I think the mindless masses will beta test and loose a lot of data, leading up to the release of 10.13. They'll install anything because they think its cool to have the newest blingbling, without any disregard for sanity.

 

[grahamperrin]

Confirming Apple's inclusion of a developer preview of APFS with the first release of Mac OS X 10.12:

http://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/09/macos-10-12-sierra-the-ars-technica-review/7/#h1 under macOS 10.12 Sierra: The Ars Technica review | Ars Technica

Thanks @Weaselboy for the link to the article.

 

[grahamperrin]

Also new (2016-09-13): Apple File System Guide

Is APFS open source?

An open source implementation is not available at this time. Apple plans to document and publish the APFS volume format specification when Apple File System is released for macOS in 2017.

So I guess that (as with the HFS Plus specification) if an open source implementation is required, it'll be for a third party to develop.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

If it is open sourced, I think we can be sure that someone will make it available, at least as a read plugin, for earlier OSX releases.

So, now 10.3b is out with APFS support, has anyone read anything on how it is performing in real use case scenarios?

 

[leman]

So, now 10.3b is out with APFS support, has anyone read anything on how it is performing in real use case scenarios?

I can only speak about my gut feeling, but I do believe that both my iPhone and iPad got snappier when opening apps...

 

[maflynn]

So, now 10.3b is out with APFS support, has anyone read anything on how it is performing in real use case scenarios?

I read somewhere that while Apple has made it optional as a developer preview for 10.12, it will be the the main FS for 10.13.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I read somewhere that while Apple has made it optional as a developer preview for 10.12, it will be the the main FS for 10.13.

I can't recall any rumors as such? But that would indeed be interesting.

 

[maflynn]

I can't recall any rumors as such? But that would indeed be interesting.

I was wrong, the article I found is regarding iOS 10.3 - sorry for the confusion

 

[Weaselboy]

I can't recall any rumors as such? But that would indeed be interesting.

The Ars Technica Sierra review talked a lot about APFS and said it would be out in 2017, so that would likely line up with the the next macOS release this fall.