External Drive - APFS or HFS+

stclairtr
stclairtr
edited November 2018 in SecuritySpy
I am storing video on an external drive (USB). Does it much matter for speed or reliability if it is formatted as APFS or HFS+? I have it as HFS+ but since the new MacOS (internal drive) is now APFS, I didn't know if the external should match.

Comments

  • meatsuit
    meatsuit
    You should do a Google search on the subject. There's lots of opinions. I know that if you have a Time Machine backup do not convert it. Because APFS lacks hard link support, converting an HFS+ volume to APFS destroys those links and replaces them with broken soft-link aliases. The files will still be there but the links will be broken.
    I just ordered a new Mini. I know i don't a choice with the new mini ssd. But have some of the same questions with my multiple connected USB drives and a new raid that i just ordered. Link From Apple: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT208018
  • guykuo
    guykuo
    edited November 2018
    I would stick with HFS+ journaled on your external hard drives. It is a stable, proven file system that works reliably. The internal SSD and external hard drives do NOT need to have same file system. I maintain nearly 90 TB of external media on my server. HFS+ works.

    APFS has some (dubious) advantages on an SSD, but not for hard drive storage of media. When I copy a video file, I want an actual duplication performed, not just a link to a pseudo-instance of the data. Sure it's much faster to pretend to make a copy, but that doesn't create actual data redundancy.

    Under SS usage scenario, APFS delivers no benefit on your external hard drives.
  • stclairtr
    stclairtr
    Thanks.
  • Ben
    Ben
    I agree with @guykuo :)
  • meatsuit
    meatsuit
    Yes. Thanks that seems to be the the consensus.
  • rpmartinez
    rpmartinez
    https://www.bensoftware.com/forum/discussion/comment/8383#Comment_8383

    Hi, it’s a few years later now and I wanted to see if you still agreed that the external drive where the recordings are being saved to should be formatted as HFS+ journaled instead of APFS. I just bought a new Sandisk Extreme Pro 2TB SSD and want to make sure I format it properly. Thanks

  • Ben
    Ben

    Thanks for checking @rpmartinez - in the last couple of years we have seen some problems with HFS+ format disks on newer macOS versions and Mac hardware. Therefore, on new systems, we now recommend using APFS for all disks.

  • rpmartinez
    rpmartinez
    https://bensoftware.com/forum/discussion/comment/14817#Comment_14817

    Great to hear, thank you!

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