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User profile for user: Stephen Zelley
Stephen Zelley Author
User level: Level 1
33 points

APFS support for external harddrives?

Hi, I have a macbook air, M1, 2020. I use a 5tb external harddrive, USB3.0, connected by a USBC to USB adapter for backups. And by backups I mean just copying files from my main internal SSD to the external harddrive. My question is, If I format my external harddrive for APFS, will it work just as well as it did for HFS pluss, Mac oS extended, or would it even work at all? I've heard on other websights that APFS is not a good filesystem for external harddrives, is that true or will it work? My concern is that in a future Mac oS update Apple will drop support for Mac oS extended and that I will be forced to use online backup Solutions to backup my files, I find backing up my files to external harddrives more convenient and a more cheeper alternitive to Online backup services. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

MacBook Air (2020 or later)

Posted on Mar 11, 2022 10:51 PM

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User profile for user: DiZoE
DiZoE
User level: Level 4
3,009 points

Mar 11, 2022 11:16 PM in response to Stephen Zelley

Hi there!


I understand your concern, however I haven’t had any issues in regards to APFS as opposed to HFS+, at least not yet. I doubt the Time Machine process would transition to a full on cloud service, just due to the fact that Apple already has iCloud, and keeps trying to perfect and excel that service as it is. Time Machine works amazingly as it is, whether it in use by external hard drives or network drives, (I personally prefer a usb drive). In any case, I keep more than one backup on more than one external drive, although I don’t believe worrying about which format each is, is an issue. The only exception is the HFS+ formatted drives I’ve used since Sierra and before. I think after Catalina I started to format as APFS, just to keep up with the times. However, I still have not had any issues pulling data from the older drives, unless the drive started failing on its own.

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APFS support for external harddrives?

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