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Post by Quint on Apr 23, 2022 10:49:24 GMT -6
So, continuing on my journey to learn all of this Mac stuff (I've been on PC, but recently bought a Mac Studio), what is best practice these days for formatting drives for use with Macs, in the context of typical recording studio requirements?
I'm all ears on suggestions but, based on what I've read so far, it sounds like the best format for all SSDs (external/internal, sample libraries, project audio files, etc.) is APFS. Is this correct, or are there other formats that I should be considering for my SSDs?
What about backup drives, HDD spinners, specifically? I'm a bit more uncertain here. I see different suggestions thrown around like HFS, OS Extended Journal, etc.
Thoughts?
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Post by nudwig on Apr 23, 2022 23:55:16 GMT -6
I do APFS as it's the new one but with so many hard drives going back years and years I have a mix of them all. I seem to remember reading some story of older formats not working on newer computers but they all work fine. The only thing special I do is encrypt all external drives as a precaution.
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Post by kcatthedog on Apr 24, 2022 0:56:33 GMT -6
I thought Apfs was required on /for the newer macs.
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Post by Quint on Apr 24, 2022 8:04:54 GMT -6
I do APFS as it's the new one but with so many hard drives going back years and years I have a mix of them all. I seem to remember reading some story of older formats not working on newer computers but they all work fine. The only thing special I do is encrypt all external drives as a precaution. Are you talking about for SSD, HDD, or both? You said "hard drive" so I thought maybe you were just referring specifically to my second question about backup HDDs, but I wasn't sure. |
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Post by the other mark williams on Apr 24, 2022 8:59:37 GMT -6
I do APFS for all SSDs, and until recently I did HFS+ for all spinner HDDs. I tried APFS for my most recent spinner HDDs, and no problems at all so far.
I even converted from one format to another with live data on the drive a few months back as a test, and had no problems there, either.
I would probably read a few articles and/or forum posts at various Mac sites as you make your decision, but in general, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem whichever way you choose.
Oh, and when formatting a thumb drive that I know might be used by someone with a PC, I use exFAT just in case.
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Post by Quint on Apr 24, 2022 9:09:06 GMT -6
I do APFS for all SSDs, and until recently I did HFS+ for all spinner HDDs. I tried APFS for my most recent spinner HDDs, and no problems at all so far. I even converted from one format to another with live data on the drive a few months back as a test, and had no problems there, either. I would probably read a few articles and/or forum posts at various Mac sites as you make your decision, but in general, I don’t think it’s going to be a problem whichever way you choose. Oh, and when formatting a thumb drive that I know might be used by someone with a PC, I use exFAT just in case. Yeah, I've been reading some things online. APFS generally seems the way to go for my SSDs, as far as Mac is concerned. As for HDDs, APFS also seems the way to go since I'm on Monterrey and going to be using Time Machine, but I was just wondering if there was any advantage to stick with HFS+ for my HDDs? For my project audio and sample library SSDs, even though APFS seems the way to go if you're going to use said drives exclusively with Mac, I had considered going exFAT, so that I could easily also plug these drives into my PC as well, but it seems like I had read somewhere that exFAT comes with a reduction of read/write performance and/or is more prone to errors. Have you heard anything like this? To be clear, I'm primarily interested in just finding out what is the best way to format my various drives for use with Mac. That's the primary focus here. However, I had been wondering if exFAT might be the way to go, so that I could use these drives with my PC too. However, I don't know if I'd want to format them in exFAT if it's going to potentially cause problems or result in a reduction in performance. |
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Post by nudwig on Apr 24, 2022 9:31:27 GMT -6
Are you talking about for SSD, HDD, or both? You said "hard drive" so I thought maybe you were just referring specifically to my second question about backup HDDs, but I wasn't sure. Spinners and SSD's, external and internal, depending on how long I've had it it'll have a different format, I haven't bothered to change the older ones over and haven't run into any issues when I need to pull up an older drive. It's been a while since I've rebuilt my 2009 Mac Pro (put boot and session SSD's on the PCIE and 8TB drives in all the other slots) so I'd have to check that but my laptop, the last of the 16" intel powered MBP's, came formatted APFS and I never changed it. Like Mark mentioned above I also do thumb drives in ExFAT just for compatibility. I never did a deep dive into ultimate performance but I always felt the actual speed of the drive played a bigger part anyway. Outside the internal drive in order of speed the externals drives I have are T5, Samsung SSD Pro, other SSD's, then spinners. It's been a while since I've built or even had to maintain a Windows machine so I don't know if they're more picky with formatting but at least up to Catalina I haven't had issues with any of the Apple formats. |
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Post by popmann on Apr 24, 2022 11:52:03 GMT -6
I'll save you trouble. Nothing is cross platform that handles large file systems. ExFat is so slow on MacOS, it's useless for anything but offline transfers of files...it apparently works OK On Windows, but I've never tried it there because "why?"
You need to convert everything to APFS and never plug it into Windows. Set up a file share to transfer files....or Fat32 thumbdrives.
There is technically a driver you can buy for MacOS (ehm...extention, since Macs don't use dirty dirty "drivers" sic) that will allow NTFS writing(MacOS has a driver in the OS to READ NTFS because without it they couldn't transition people from Windows). Every time you plug that drive into Windows, it will tell you it corrupt and needs to be repaired. Knock wood, it's always been successful, but it's an annoyance. I have a big 5TB HDD that came with the limited version of that...
It's cheaper to treat them as the separate systems they are with their own backup drives. If your big backup needs to stay NTFS, you can always just create a fileshare that MacOS can mount on the PC that points to it...functionally making your Windows tower a backup server for MacOS. But, honestly--nothing is really compatible besides old school FAT32 for thumbdrives. So, you can't really "share" storage that isn't NAS/IP sever storage.
...and if one wants to know how I know this? It's what killed the Hackintosh dual boot plans here. If I can't share my fast expensive sample storage, it means that one of the two will be a useless shell, in terms of music making...at some point, I was going to put OSX on...and JUST install duplicates of the SD3 Decades, since that's all I really use in LogicX for my custom scripted stuff anymore...but, PIA...didn't work out of the gate...couldn't justify sinking the time to make it work.
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Post by Quint on Apr 24, 2022 16:05:41 GMT -6
I'll save you trouble. Nothing is cross platform that handles large file systems. ExFat is so slow on MacOS, it's useless for anything but offline transfers of files...it apparently works OK On Windows, but I've never tried it there because "why?" You need to convert everything to APFS and never plug it into Windows. Set up a file share to transfer files....or Fat32 thumbdrives. There is technically a driver you can buy for MacOS (ehm...extention, since Macs don't use dirty dirty "drivers" sic) that will allow NTFS writing(MacOS has a driver in the OS to READ NTFS because without it they couldn't transition people from Windows). Every time you plug that drive into Windows, it will tell you it corrupt and needs to be repaired. Knock wood, it's always been successful, but it's an annoyance. I have a big 5TB HDD that came with the limited version of that... It's cheaper to treat them as the separate systems they are with their own backup drives. If your big backup needs to stay NTFS, you can always just create a fileshare that MacOS can mount on the PC that points to it...functionally making your Windows tower a backup server for MacOS. But, honestly--nothing is really compatible besides old school FAT32 for thumbdrives. So, you can't really "share" storage that isn't NAS/IP sever storage. ...and if one wants to know how I know this? It's what killed the Hackintosh dual boot plans here. If I can't share my fast expensive sample storage, it means that one of the two will be a useless shell, in terms of music making...at some point, I was going to put OSX on...and JUST install duplicates of the SD3 Decades, since that's all I really use in LogicX for my custom scripted stuff anymore...but, PIA...didn't work out of the gate...couldn't justify sinking the time to make it work. I was only considering exFAT for my sample library external drive (and maybe audio external drives) so I could use them back and forth between Mac and PC. But you make some good points. Sounds like I should just go APFS for ALL of my drives (samples, audio, backup) that I intend to use with my Mac. |
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Post by dok on Apr 24, 2022 23:34:58 GMT -6
There is technically a driver you can buy for MacOS (ehm...extention, since Macs don't use dirty dirty "drivers" sic) !??! I install drivers on MacOS all the time. They're absolutely a thing and still required to run non class-compliant hardware, and probably will be for a long time. |
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Post by sirthought on Apr 24, 2022 23:50:36 GMT -6
You can use the APFS for all the drives you are interacting with. That is, not a backup drive.
For back up drives, that works too, but OS Extended Journaled is fine as well. It won't mess anything up either way with those. Time Machine works with both formats.
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Post by damoongo on Apr 25, 2022 1:11:35 GMT -6
Funny how the Mac guys are finally starting to sound like Windows nerds…
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Post by Mister Chase on Apr 25, 2022 19:18:44 GMT -6
APFS for my Time machine drive and main drive, Mac OS extended on the backup USB drives. I share stuff over the network so I can go from PC to Mac without issues.
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Post by Quint on Apr 25, 2022 19:52:04 GMT -6
You can use the APFS for all the drives you are interacting with. That is, not a backup drive. For back up drives, that works too, but OS Extended Journaled is fine as well. It won't mess anything up either way with those. Time Machine works with both formats. So then what would be the reason to choose one over the other? |
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Post by sirthought on Apr 25, 2022 21:11:20 GMT -6
You can use the APFS for all the drives you are interacting with. That is, not a backup drive. For back up drives, that works too, but OS Extended Journaled is fine as well. It won't mess anything up either way with those. Time Machine works with both formats. So then what would be the reason to choose one over the other? I'd only use the OS Extended Journaled if: - you have a drive that is already formatted as such. It works, so no need to reformat it. - you have a drive that could possibly be connected to an older Mac. I really don't know if older Macs can read files formatted in APFS. If you don't have an older Mac that still sees use, then this concern would be null. I also believe that Windows computers can read (not write) files in OS Extended, and I'm ignorant if that's the case with APFS. But regardless, if you need to get a file onto a Windows PC there are other options for transfer. If you just have the one new Mac and you need different drives for samples, backup, or whatever else you might be storing, there's no real reason not to use APFS. |
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Post by Quint on Apr 26, 2022 5:51:36 GMT -6
So then what would be the reason to choose one over the other? I'd only use the OS Extended Journaled if: - you have a drive that is already formatted as such. It works, so no need to reformat it. - you have a drive that could possibly be connected to an older Mac. I really don't know if older Macs can read files formatted in APFS. If you don't have an older Mac that still sees use, then this concern would be null. I also believe that Windows computers can read (not write) files in OS Extended, and I'm ignorant if that's the case with APFS. But regardless, if you need to get a file onto a Windows PC there are other options for transfer. If you just have the one new Mac and you need different drives for samples, backup, or whatever else you might be storing, there's no real reason not to use APFS. Yep. It sounds like I should just go APFS for everything. |
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