Backup to HFS+ or APFS-formatted drive

[tideman]

I'm not running High Sierra on either of my SSD-equipped iMacs, but with today's release of 10.13.1 I'm thinking of updating. I currently back them up to HFS Plus-formatted HDDs. After updating the computers to High Sierra, will I also need to update the backup HDDs to APFS before I use SuperDuper! beta so that I end up with bootable clones? Thanks!

[dnanian]

You can keep using HFS+ volumes if you'd like. (I'm using APFS destinations for my 'real' backups, but we test HFS+ destinations as well, of course.)

[tideman]

You can keep using HFS+ volumes if you'd like. (I'm using APFS destinations for my 'real' backups, but we test HFS+ destinations as well, of course.)

Thanks, Dave. Is there any advantage to one over the other? Are APFS backups preferable for any reason?

[dnanian]

I try to talk generally about the benefits of using APFS for your backups here:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/comments/automatic_transmission/

[Hoosier_1701]

I’m really interested in this question as well. I don’t see anything in that post that appears to address it though. Am I looking in the wrong place? Where do you discuss APFS vs HFS+for the backup volume?

[dnanian]

The general discussion of flexible partitioning, volume creation, explicit support for multiple boot volumes, etc? Isn't that in there?

(Not to mention APFS doesn't need journaling and is more robust... it has problems running as a constantly part-updated boot volume, but as a backup volume, the general issues of micro-fragmentation are avoided, because we're not updating in the middle of files...)

[dnanian]

The general discussion of flexible partitioning, volume creation, explicit support for multiple boot volumes, etc? Isn't that in there?

(Not to mention APFS doesn't need journaling and is more robust... it has problems running as a constantly part-updated boot volume, but as a backup volume, the general issues of micro-fragmentation are avoided, because we're not updating in the middle of files...)

[Michael@wengam]

I try to talk generally about the benefits of using APFS for your backups here:

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/comments/automatic_transmission/

I get a story called 'Automatic Transmission'. Can't find anything about APFS there.

[Edit: thanks for the updated link (next post)]

[dnanian]

Clearly goofed there. Try https://www.shirt-pocket.com/blog/index.php/shadedgrey/comments/forward_into_the_past/