should i leave my External Hard disks Extended Jornaled or convert to APFS?
By Ramy, 6 August, 2022
Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories
Hello:
Using the latest mac os here, and need to know if this is better converting our External Hard desks to APFS or leave them As extended jornaled?
what will be the most healthy for my Desks?
Just to clarify, although not initially supported, an update to macOS Big Sur added support for using a drive formatted with Apple's APFS filesystem as a Time Machine destination.
The general rule is that if you're using a spinning hard drive, it's better to leave it in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Solid state drives (SSDs) should be in APFS instead. APFS is designed especially for SSDs and take advantage of their ability to access data from any part of the drive efficiently. Using APFS on a spinning hard drive can significantly slow down your computer and does not offer any real benefit.
Sorry for the late reply (haven't been to these forums in a while).
You might consider xfat disk format instead. xfat allows file access on the hard drive by both MacOS and Windows. Sure, you won't be using time machine for backing up, but why would you want to use it? Time machine is not exactly a user friendly app, especially for restoring files or hard drives, plus there are far better, faster apps out there like chrono symc express.
Comments
Extended journaled
If you plan to use Time Machine with your disks, leave them as extended journaled. Time Machine does not currently work with APFS formatted disks.
APFS and Time Machine
Just to clarify, although not initially supported, an update to macOS Big Sur added support for using a drive formatted with Apple's APFS filesystem as a Time Machine destination.
See: Types of disks you can use with Time Machine on Mac
Which says:
I have a couple of external SSD drives formatted with APFS, and both work fine - 1 for Time Machine and the other for Carbon Copy Cloner backups.
Hard drive vs SSD
The general rule is that if you're using a spinning hard drive, it's better to leave it in Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format. Solid state drives (SSDs) should be in APFS instead. APFS is designed especially for SSDs and take advantage of their ability to access data from any part of the drive efficiently. Using APFS on a spinning hard drive can significantly slow down your computer and does not offer any real benefit.
Sorry for the late reply (haven't been to these forums in a while).
Not Late, but very clear
Very Clear and professional reply, Thanks so much for your help
If you're also using windows
You might consider xfat disk format instead. xfat allows file access on the hard drive by both MacOS and Windows. Sure, you won't be using time machine for backing up, but why would you want to use it? Time machine is not exactly a user friendly app, especially for restoring files or hard drives, plus there are far better, faster apps out there like chrono symc express.
Good luck,
Bruce
Using CCC Here
AM Using CCC to Backup and Restore my Hard drives.