Copy Time Machine Backup to new external drive

Several previous posts have discussed this issue but it's not clear yet if it's possible to have the new drive on a different format. In practice, Apple recommends the use of APFS, my backups started on Mac OS extended in late 2019. I understand that Time Machine would now work better using APFS. Is it possible to copy the backup file from a Mac OS extended disk to a an APFS disk?

If not, what are the drawbacks of Formatting the new disk with Mac OS extended and just keep using this format?