Will HFS+ Damage SSDs?

[Slartibart]

It's going to happen any day now (i.e., almost a certainty within the next two years): somebody will finally solve the Linux Problem, and, once solved*, an easily-duplicatable and bootloader'd solution will spread exponentially to take over the planet as everyone adopts. Microsoft, Apple, and all the accredited business-partner hardware OEMs (with their brave-new-world dreams of today's-"secure"=tomorrow's-bricked computers being planned-obsolescence third major purchases after homes and cars) will be left holding their dicks wondering what happened. (*It's already partially solved on the PC side, as you can run most Windows apps in Linux with Wine or similar open-source utility.)

You missed putting </sarcasm> or </Fe>, didn’t you? 🙃

Well, I might be of course wrong, but that comment completely ignores the way the computer industry works.

Last time I checked instead of replacing old technology, new technology gets deployed for new applications.

Microsoft Windows will probably remain the dominant operating system as long as the dominant PC applications are the ones we're seeing today: word processing, e-mail, spreadsheets, web browsing, and accessing enterprise applications through a client-server or browser interface.

And: most users don't replace what they already have. Or take mainframes: PCs and Unix servers didn't eradicate mainframes, even though the vendors of PC and UXS kept insisting that was going to happen any day now.
Another example: IBM‘s OS/2 shows that simply doing things better and cheaper will not be sufficient to steal market share from Windows.

Yes, Linux is poised (or has already) to become a key technology in several new media. And yes, we may see an opportunity for Linux on the desktop after all, simply by providing a cheaper and less vulnerable alternative to Windows… but that has mostly never worked out so far (or it is some form of back and forth - e.g. if you would google for the unitary move to Linux of the administration of the city of munich, germany).

But well, I have set a reminder for the 17th of juli 2026, let’s meet here at 12:00 CET 😎

 

[Sciuriware]

You missed putting </sarcasm> or </Fe>, didn’t you? 🙃

Well, I might be of course wrong, but that comment completely ignores the way the computer industry works.

Last time I checked instead of replacing old technology, new technology gets deployed for new applications.

Microsoft Windows will probably remain the dominant operating system as long as the dominant PC applications are the ones we're seeing today: word processing, e-mail, spreadsheets, web browsing, and accessing enterprise applications through a client-server or browser interface.

And: most users don't replace what they already have. Or take mainframes: PCs and Unix servers didn't eradicate mainframes, even though the vendors of PC and UXS kept insisting that was going to happen any day now.
Another example: IBM‘s OS/2 shows that simply doing things better and cheaper will not be sufficient to steal market share from Windows.

Yes, Linux is poised (or has already) to become a key technology in several new media. And yes, we may see an opportunity for Linux on the desktop after all, simply by providing a cheaper and less vulnerable alternative to Windows… but that has mostly never worked out so far (or it is some form of back and forth - e.g. if you would google for the unitary move to Linux of the administration of the city of munich, germany).

But well, I have set a reminder for the 17th of juli 2026, let’s meet here at 12:00 CET 😎

Microsoft proved that (hard) 'marketing' beats everything: buy a PC and Windows is already 'glued' on it.
LINUX: was a way to make UNIX more user friendly, but failed to provide applications.
And, who needs LINUX today: MacOS == UNIX+Windows, assembled at XEROX and picked up by Steve Jobs,
after the XEROX management gave up. Ironic: Office was also created at XEROX but also dropped by the management,
picked up by Bill Gates c.s. to become the chicken with the golden eggs.
The future is unpredictable, or so it seems.
;JOOP!

 

[Minghold]

You missed putting </sarcasm> or </Fe>, didn’t you? 🙃

No.

Well, I might be of course wrong, but that comment completely ignores the way the computer industry works.

"The computer industry" (the S&P500 corps fronting intelligence entities) won't have any say in the matter, as they're the cancer everyone will be fleeing from and-good-riddance. They're like newsprint, circa 2003.

But well, I have set a reminder for the 17th of juli 2026, let’s meet here at 12:00 CET 😎

Send me a 'ping'.

 

[Minghold]

HFS+ does not damage SSDs. It works just fine.

HFS+ prioritizes the early sectors on storage devices because this maximizes performance and longevity of rotational drives (this is also why Fusion drives work so well with HFS+), but this emphasis may cause wear-leveling problems with SSDs (and it's why Fusion drives shouldn't be "split").

APFS, however, definitely will drastically reduce the lifespan of rotational drives -- and Apple knows it. Depricating HFS+ as a boot-drive option while simultaneously making APFS the OS default for or all Macs back to 2012 represents a deliberate act of mass vandalism against every one of their customers who purchased any machine without a full SSD.

However, as Bigwaff says, there are other limitations at play for using HFS+ these days. It's a legacy filesystem at this point.

It's not a legacy system. In fact, many of Apple's installers still use it.

As for not enough space, TimeMachine makes incremental backups all the time. It makes sense for it to take up *more space* than the machine you back up as it tries to keep several versions of everything as far back as it can.

Always make an external drive your TM backup device. (There's no reason to clog up priority space on a faster internal drive with this stuff, especially if it's a small SSD.)

 

[casperes1996]

HFS+ prioritizes the early sectors on storage devices because this maximizes performance and longevity of rotational drives (this is also why Fusion drives work so well with HFS+), but this emphasis may cause wear-leveling problems with SSDs (and it's why Fusion drives shouldn't be "split").

I mean, I agree with not splitting a Fusion Drive personally, but I don't see how it relates to this. If you split your Fusion, you just take manual responsibility for handling all of this (and can really only handle on a file level not a block level), but you could format the SSD portion as APFS and the HDD portion as HFS+ if you so desired.

As for wear-levelling, the SSD controller will still do wear levelling per nand for you. So if you write a lot to a given sector a lot and the sector sees a complete deletion and rewrite, the SSD controller can move which NAND chips map to that sector, as an example. So there may be some difference here but it's not going to destroy an SSD like a chainsaw on IKEA furniture to run with HFS+, neither is running APFS on an HDD going to kill it in a year. HDDs don't mind rotating a lot, so while it will definitely reduce performance to not have things packed around the outer platter, it's not going to kill your disk. Just keep it spinning a little longer at a time, which yes, does use it and all use wears things out, but HDDs can last decades.

It's not a legacy system. In fact, many of Apple's installers still use it.

Which installers? (Not snarky, genuine question)

But there's also still Apple software out there in active use today in the most recent macOS that is still x86 binaries - From the perspective of modern Apple development, that's legacy. Supported and in use, but "legacy" going forward

 

[Minghold]

I mean, I agree with not splitting a Fusion Drive personally, but I don't see how it relates to this. If you split your Fusion, you just take manual responsibility for handling all of this (and can really only handle on a file level not a block level), but you could format the SSD portion as APFS and the HDD portion as HFS+ if you so desired.

Let's say you had a HFS+ capable operating system such as Mojave: You will maximize the longevity of both drives by keeping the Fusion tied together, and the SSD portion will primary used for system and startup cache files (i.e., the device becomes an almost purely "read-from" as opposed to "written-to" device); SSD "wear" only occurs during writes.

So, run Mojave HFS+ on Fusions and rotationals, and APFS off externals.

As for wear-levelling, the SSD controller will still do wear levelling per nand for you.

The overall maximum amount of writes are also problematic, especially for earlier drives inside sealed cases.

neither is running APFS on an HDD going to kill it in a year. HDDs don't mind rotating a lot,

What they don't like is a lot of mechanical stress on the read-write arm struggling to keep up with the massivly-increased load of background telemetry and file checking and synching going on in APFS. I buy Macs from recyclers, and virtually every Hdd in an intel Mac with an APFS shows significant amounts of wear in utilities such as DriveDx, whereas those in machines running, say, Sierra, are in many cases still at or near 100% health.

...But there's also still Apple software out there in active use today in the most recent macOS that is still x86 binaries - From the perspective of modern Apple development, that's legacy. Supported and in use, but "legacy" going forward

Apple maliciously killed off 32bit because it's in bed with Microsoft and Adobe, and all of them wanted CS6, Office11, and Final Cut 7 to go away, the better to rope everyone into their subscription-model future where the App Store was the only way to obtain software for most people. (As far as intel support goes, that will probably be killed off in the next OS or two, seeing as Sequoia requires 2019+ hardware already, and Apple was fully silicon by 2021.) Meanwhile, all it takes to install Windows 11 on Core2Duo hardware is availing oneself of one of several utilities that bypass the checking algorithm.)

 

[bzgnyc2]

Let's say you had a HFS+ capable operating system such as Mojave: You will maximize the longevity of both drives by keeping the Fusion tied together, and the SSD portion will primary used for system and startup cache files (i.e., the device becomes an almost purely "read-from" as opposed to "written-to" device); SSD "wear" only occurs during writes.

So, run Mojave HFS+ on Fusions and rotationals, and APFS off externals.

I agree with your conclusions generally though I would soften the prohibition against HFS+ on SSD. Most modern SSD have pretty good wear-leveling management and I wouldn't worry about HFS+ versus APFS as far as wearing out the SSD prematurely. Not saying the difference is 0 -- just not material for most people in most use cases. I am again assuming quality SSD with reasonable TBW, etc. And for people buying something else, I suspect HFS+ versus APFS is going to be the least of their problems...

The overall maximum amount of writes are also problematic, especially for earlier drives inside sealed cases.

Agree and also that that problem is bigger than just HFS or APFS. Software today has become ridiculously rambling. Just look at the Data Written in Activity Monitor under Disk right after boot. It rewrites more data than what was an entire enterprise OS years ago. And it gets worse with every update to macOS and every background software update it initiates desired or not. Then there's the constant updating of Preferences files whether one makes a change to a preference or not...

Despite the waste, fraud, and abuse that represents, I've learned to live with it in the grand scheme of things. These inefficiencies will probably sum to terabytes over the life of the computer but are still small assuming a reasonable TBW. Like a small oil leak in a car, it's not good but it may not be worth an engine rebuild...

In the meantime, I try to be thoughtful with my writes in any software I write and look at a software's write activity as a proxy for programming quality.

What they don't like is a lot of mechanical stress on the read-write arm struggling to keep up with the massivly-increased load of background telemetry and file checking and synching going on in APFS

Mechanical hard drives used to be designed to run 100% read/write 24x7 for 5 years. Then someone figured out that they could save a few bucks by making drives for consumers that only need to run <10 hours/day 99% idle mostly read. Enterprise hard drives should still be fine but of course that's not what most of us are dealing with in this forum.

In any case, agree APFS is an antioptimization for mechanical hard drives and should be avoided unless one has a specific reason to use it there. That said, in 2025 consumer users should also avoid mechanical hard drives, again without specific reason to use them.

Apple maliciously killed off 32bit because it's in bed with Microsoft and Adobe, and all of them wanted CS6, Office11, and Final Cut 7 to go away, the better to rope everyone into their subscription-model future where the App Store was the only way to obtain software for most people. (As far as intel support goes, that will probably be killed off in the next OS or two, seeing as Sequoia requires 2019+ hardware already, and Apple was fully silicon by 2021.) Meanwhile, all it takes to install Windows 11 on Core2Duo hardware is availing oneself of one of several utilities that bypass the checking algorithm.)

The Core 2 Duo is all the processor power needed for productivity/etc type work assuming efficient software. Which frustratingly is almost none these days. All developers should be required to debug their software/websites on a Raspberry Pi 2W before releasing it...

 

[Minghold]

"...Software today has become ridiculously rambling. Just look at the Data Written in Activity Monitor under Disk right after boot. It rewrites more data than what was an entire enterprise OS years ago. And it gets worse with every update to macOS and every background software update it initiates desired or not. Then there's the constant updating of Preferences files whether one makes a change to a preference or not...."

Well, the NSA does need to keep an eye on the tax-serfs fifty times a second.

"...That said, in 2025 consumer users should also avoid mechanical hard drives, again without specific reason to use them...."

SSDs for non-boot drives are one of the biggest "consumer" wastes money. E.g., the person who needs a dump for all their phone pictures and movies. Such drives are literal write-once/read-twice.

"...The Core 2 Duo is all the processor power needed for productivity/etc type work assuming efficient software. Which frustratingly is almost none these days...."

I can launch Snow Leopard off an ailing 320gb rotational drive over USB2 to a dome-model iMac with 2gb ram in about thirty seconds, and launch Photoshop CS6 Extended in under five seconds. Once open, virtually everything runs at the speed of "waiting for the human", and it matters little if the machine's processor can count to a septillion vs a million between keystrokes or mouse actions.

"...All developers should be required to debug their software/websites on a Raspberry Pi 2W before...."

That's not going to happen when their employer is specifically instructing them to obfuscate the software to artificially obsolesce the hardware. For example, the entire subscription-model video-editing industry goes out of it's way to hide the very knowledge of stream-copying from its customers. I.e., 95% of people editing video are playing with files made by the same device (their phone or camera); such material can be chopped and spliced losslessly on keyframes in at most a few minutes of a twenty year old machine. But no, what you really need is Final Cut Pro version 57.6 on an M4 with 128gb ram and 2tb of supplemental plugins in order to *render* it in near-realtime -- but in a few years, Apple's phalanx of yes-men will start tongue-clucking how hopelessly antiquated your creaky Sequoia system is now that it's past support and Safari is riven with redirect malware again.

~ ~ ~ ~

I visit a local recycler twice a month, and buy every intel Mac they have, and salt them away.

 

[MarkC426]

Time Machine requirements aside…

My SSD’s in my cMP have been APFS (boot drives) and HFS+ (data drives) for over a decade.
TM HDD is HFS+ (Mojave).

Time Machine using an SSD is overkill ‘in my opinion’….. 😁
I had a bus powered SSD as a TM drive in my Studio, but discovered backups where not available from the gui (but where from Finder), so changed to a powered LaCie D2 HDD (APFS in this instance).