High Sierra

[rwross]

Hi Dave,

I know you have a policy of not providing much information about upcoming releases. I'm slow having asked similar questions for the past 10 years, but I'm not completely incapable of learning :-)

Thus, I will ask a more general questions.

Have you explored the new file structure (APFS) at all and do you see anything insurmountable resulting from it being part of High Sierra.

Ok...maybe am I am incapable of learning because I'll go ahead and ask...how is your comfort level of SD! being ready to go or still functioning with 10.13?

:-P

[dnanian]

Work is in progress on support APFS. 10.13 is not out yet, not finished (even APFS isn't finished), so asking about whether we're "ready to go" is premature. 10.13 isn't ready to go itself!

[Papa Art]

Attempted to use SuperDuper today, but it can't seem to see/find my "Macintosh HD" (which does appear as usual on the desktop). Can I no longer use SuperDuper? Thanks!

[dnanian]

We do not yet support APFS... if you want to use SUperDuper! with High Sierra at this point of the beta, continue to use HFS+.

[Papa Art]

Not sure how to do that.

[dnanian]

When you install, there's a checkbox that lets you not convert to APFS...

[Papa Art]

Oops! (Too late for that.) When do you anticipate an update for SuperDuper? Thanks!

[dnanian]

When the work is done...and not a moment before

[ashleykaryl]

I see others are thinking about the same questions. I've been hearing mixed reports about APFS, but as pointed out it's not yet finished. I gather it will save a lot of drive space and also make file copying lightning fast, so in theory daily backups with SuperDuper! might be complete in a matter of seconds.

One area I'm unsure about is how the new format will behave on SATA drives, since I gather it's being aimed primarily at SSD.

[dnanian]

No, Ashley: It doesn't make file copying lightning fast (and it is primarily designed for flash media). It makes certain types of copies (that is, copies of files on the same drive) fast at the time of copying, since it doesn't copy - it references. But when you then change the file, the copy is *really* done.

Normal copies, to separate drives, are not lightning fast, and will never be: the data has to actually be copied.

[HackDaBox]

exactly... I think this is the biggest misunderstanding about APFS !

[ashleykaryl]

I've also read this new format is less prone to file corruption. Hopefully something here is true!

[dnanian]

In general, I would suggest that a brand new file system, even when tested, is going to be much much riskier than one with the years of refinement HFS+ has.

By that I don't mean to suggest HFS+ is perfect. Just that APFS isn't going to be mature for a while, and I'd probably leave it to the "pioneers" (the ones with the arrows in them) to work with it for a while...

[Papa Art]

FWIW: I see that Carbon Copy Cloner now supports the new system.

[dnanian]

As does Time Machine, of course. We're working on it. But my advice remains the same: in general, unless you need to move to High Sierra, I'd let others find the first-few-versions' bugs.

As you've likely seen, if you have an SSD, it's going to get converted to APFS. You won't have a choice. I'm sure Apple has a lot of confidence in the new file system, and it's likely quite good, but it's going to break things (for example, Disk Warrior, low-level file system tools, etc) and there just isn't any rush for most users to install it.

Don't get caught up in the "NEW!" excitement. Relax. Have a beverage. Breathe. Read about others' trials and tribulations, confident that your Mac is going to work just like it works now, there's nothing must-have in High Sierra, and waiting a little while means you'll be in a better position when 10.13.1/.2/.3 makes their inevitable appearance.