Introducing Apple File System (APFS)

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

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.

Well, they don't specifically say it will launch with 10.13, and since it is actually launching in 2017 with 10.3, the article is correct.

I am just afraid that Apple will hold back on macOS - Again - And wait until 10.14 because of lacking resources for the macOS team. I mean, it took them 5 years to release Siri for the Mac, which is quite a big thing....

 

[leman]

I am just afraid that Apple will hold back on macOS - Again - And wait until 10.14 because of lacking resources for the macOS team. I mean, it took them 5 years to release Siri for the Mac, which is quite a big thing....

I hope they will hold back as long as they have to. Deploying a new FS is a major undertaking — and deploying a new FS on desktop is a major undertaking with very high cost of failure at that. Apple has traditionally used iOS to test out risky or novel features simply because the potential damage is much lower. If your filesystem on a phone goes haywire — you can just reset it, reinstall your app and restore from the iTunes backup, takes just few minutes. If your mission-critical Mac Pro encounters a FS bug, well, ugh...

BTW, it took ZFS 5 years of development until official maturity. For btrfs, it was 7 years.

 

[belvdr]

BTW, it took ZFS 5 years of development until official maturity. For btrfs, it was 7 years.

At the risk of derailment, is btrfs considered mature now? I typically use RHEL/CentOS and haven't seen where btrfs is making any progress there.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

BTW, it took ZFS 5 years of development until official maturity. For btrfs, it was 7 years.

Do we know how long Apple has worked on this? I mean, on APFS for real.

 

[leman]

Do we know how long Apple has worked on this? I mean, on APFS for real.

No, but Apple has a tendency to release things that are not completely done yet I am sure that APFS will be thoroughly tested when it is released on desktop though, and I would bet that pushing it to iOS is also part of this testing on a very wide scale.

At the risk of derailment, is btrfs considered mature now? I typically use RHEL/CentOS and haven't seen where btrfs is making any progress there.

Well, Synology uses btrfs for their NAS, so I assume that it must be mature enough.

 

[Ebenezum]

Do we know how long Apple has worked on this? I mean, on APFS for real.

If I remember correctly 4 years was mentioned on the WWDC 2016 videos but I might be wrong.

 

[AidenShaw]

Well, Synology uses btrfs for their NAS, so I assume that it must be mature enough.

"Mature enough" for a closed appliance, anyway. Doesn't mean that it's stable enough for multi-application production use.

I'm setting up an 80TB PostgreSQL database at the moment. I read a number of warnings about btrfs, so now I'm testing ZFS on JBOD vs. ext4/LVM2 on hardware RAID-60. (typo edit: ext4, not extr)

 

[bradl]

"Mature enough" for a closed appliance, anyway. Doesn't mean that it's stable enough for multi-application production use.

I'm setting up an 80TB PostgreSQL database at the moment. I read a number of warnings about btrfs, so now I'm testing ZFS on JBOD vs. extr/LVM2 on hardware RAID-60.

Ugh.. I thought I had it bad with a 900GB PostgreSQL database containing PCI data. 80TB? I feel for you!

BL.

 

[grahamperrin]

Do we know …

No, …

If I remember correctly 4 years was mentioned on the WWDC 2016 videos but I might be wrong.

It is known. Less than three years (possibly less than two) at the time of announcement. Please see the overview that's linked from post 58.

 

[JamesPDX]

Start burning those MDISC Blu-Rays!

 

[bopajuice]

What are the real world benefits to the average user?

How is it going to affect they way we operate now?

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

What are the real world benefits to the average user?

How is it going to affect they way we operate now?

Ars Technica has an article on just that, but of course, it is somewhat preliminary and speculative.

 

[JamesPDX]

^^This^^

I'm already using encryption and everything works just fine via SATA6 and Thunderbolt II, etc.
I'm concerned about unexpected media data loss and lack of compatibility across software. Wherever this takes us, I'm sticking with UAD, VSL, and Avid.

Maybe it's about EOL-ing SATA for M2 and Optane. Whatever the new thing that's just a little faster but a whole helluva lot more expensive. Walled-Garden indeed.

 

[Jyby]

Science Rules!

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

I mean I can "copy" files instantly is a pretty big benefit. Plus encryption built in with better performance

How often do you copy files around on the same drive, that it actually makes much of a difference?

 

[Jyby]

Science Rules!

 

[JamesPDX]

Here's a dumb question: Does either file system store additional metadata with the user's created files (like with RAW or DNG embedded metadata) or is it truly nested deep into the system where Spotlight and MDS may or may not shine?

The system probably moves files around during it's janitorial service routine.

 

[Zirel]

How often do you copy files around on the same drive, that it actually makes much of a difference?

In a general way to what Jyby said: Snapshotting.

 

[Bubble99]

The time capsule doesn't need to directly support APFS, given that the computer being backed up creates a disk image on the Time Capsule's disk. The internal format of the disk image is invisible to the Time Capsule and so as long as macOS continues to support backup via AFP, there should be no change needed for a Time Capsule. Alternatively, it's not difficult to imagine that Apple simply opts to make all existing Time Capsules obsolete by the time 10.13 ships. Given that a transition toward completely removing AFP is underway, this would not be particularly surprising.


Given previous patterns, Apple will transition 10.11.x to security updates only next month when 10.12 is released. HFS+ support is very likely to remain in macOS for many years; what possible reason would lead you to believe that 10.11.x would receive APFS support? (With Apple providing written documentation as quoted above that APFS support is not in 10.11.x, the verbal statement made at WWDC regarding the lack of APFS support in 10.10.x and older must be considered an inadvertent misstatement.) The oldest computers which can run 10.12 is currently 7 years old, and will be 8 years old when 10.13 is released. Apple will never back port APFS to computers which are unable to run 10.12.
When Apple introduced HFS+ with Mac OS 8.1, there was no provision for Macs which couldn't run 8.1 to access these volumes and it's only recently that support for original HFS volumes was removed from OS X. Precedents are established for Apple's handling of file system changes.

It just people here want to know when Apple brings out new file system later this year or next year what would happen to in terms of backwards support.

If person B has new computer running new file system and tries to send stuff to person D older computer and older OS will it be gibberish. Will the file look gibberish on person D older computer and older OS? Will new file system read old file system? But the older OS will not read the new file system and file look gibberish?

What about people had old OS that back stuff up onto hard-drive will file look gibberish because it was old OS that stored those files?

This is what people are upset about here.

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

If person B has new computer running new file system and tries to send stuff to person D older computer and older OS will it be gibberish. Will the file look gibberish on person D older computer and older OS? Will new file system read old file system? But the older OS will not read the new file system and file look gibberish?

What about people had old OS that back stuff up onto hard-drive will file look gibberish because it was old OS that stored those files?

What you are asking about is a non-issue. The file is written to person Ds harddrive, which is running whatever filesystem. The file is still what it was before.

Files doesn't magically change language, just because they are written to another filesystem. Some metadata change, but the OS takes care of that making it transparent.

This is what people are upset about here.

Then people should stop speculating about stuff they know absolutely nothing about and stop inventing issues which doesn't exist.

 

[Bubble99]

What you are asking about is a non-issue. The file is written to person Ds harddrive, which is running whatever filesystem. The file is still what it was before.

Files doesn't magically change language, just because they are written to another filesystem. Some metadata change, but the OS takes care of that making it transparent.


Then people should stop speculating about stuff they know absolutely nothing about and stop inventing issues which doesn't exist.

That explain it bit more simplified here.

If you have a new computer late 2017 or 2018 when Apple releases it with new OS the new file system!!! Yes and you save file on a thumb drive or hard-drive with the new file system and I put that thumb drive or hard-drive would the older OS say oh what is this file system and shows it as gibberish

It like using windows 7 saving NTFS file and having windows 95 computer read a NTFS file. Well windows XP/7/8/ and windows 10 computer may support FAT16 and FAT32 a windows 95 or windows 98 may not be able read NTFS file and show it as gibberish.

Likewise trying get older OS X version trying to read Apple new file system.

What is Apple planning on doing other than forcing everyone to get new OS? If that was not problem what about files saved to thumb drive or hard-drive using the old file system?


Or is Apple just going to force updates to new OS that support that file system and problem is over..

 

[chrfr]

That explain it bit more simplified here.

If you have a new computer late 2017 or 2018 when Apple releases it with new OS the new file system!!! Yes and you save file on a thumb drive or hard-drive with the new file system and I put that thumb drive or hard-drive would the older OS say oh what is this file system and shows it as gibberish

It like using windows 7 saving NTFS file and having windows 95 computer read a NTFS file. Well windows XP/7/8/ and windows 10 computer may support FAT16 and FAT32 a windows 95 or windows 98 may not be able read NTFS file and show it as gibberish.

Likewise trying get older OS X version trying to read Apple new file system.

What is Apple planning on doing other than forcing everyone to get new OS? If that was not problem what about files saved to thumb drive or hard-drive using the old file system?


Or is Apple just going to force updates to new OS that support that file system and problem is over..

The files themselves don't change. If you have a flash drive that you need to use to transfer files between a Mac using APFS and a Windows computer or an older Mac, you'll need to format the flash drive using a format that's compatible with that other computer. This is no different than the process used to share files between Mac and Windows computers on flash drives today.

 

[grahamperrin]

… using encryption and everything works just fine via SATA6 and Thunderbolt II, etc. …

Encryption is not entirely reliable with 17A264c.

tl;dr (the usual) have verifiably good backups.

 

[JamesPDX]

What you are asking about is a non-issue. The file is written to person Ds harddrive, which is running whatever filesystem. The file is still what it was before.

Files doesn't magically change language, just because they are written to another filesystem. Some metadata change, but the OS takes care of that making it transparent.


Then people should stop speculating about stuff they know absolutely nothing about and stop inventing issues which doesn't exist.

Discussing a new file system, especially during the beta phase of a new OS is exactly the time people should be asking questions. It's not speculating, it's what happens when you outsource software engineering IT to the beta-testing public.
[doublepost=1497640535][/doublepost]

Encryption is not entirely reliable with 17A264c.

tl;dr (the usual) have verifiably good backups.

Do you mean "not entirely reliable" as in unrecoverable data corruption? Hopefully, the APFS will have any and all problems ironed out before it is unleased upon the public. Changing a file system is a really big deal.
[doublepost=1497640759][/doublepost]

The files themselves don't change. If you have a flash drive that you need to use to transfer files between a Mac using APFS and a Windows computer or an older Mac, you'll need to format the flash drive using a format that's compatible with that other computer. This is no different than the process used to share files between Mac and Windows computers on flash drives today.

This is not good news for A/V professionals who have to exchange and swap-out SSDs and hard drives to other workers in the production chain. It would be better to have the APFS on the internals and options on your externals.
Ask your local Digital Intermediate Technician.

 

[chrfr]

This is not good news for A/V professionals who have to exchange and swap-out SSDs and hard drives to other workers in the production chain. It would be better to have the APFS on the internals and options on your externals.
Ask your local Digital Intermediate Technician.

Apple isn't forcing anyone to use APFS on external drives, or even on internal drives, at this point.