If you remember in the previous article I showed you how to format an external drive to be compatible for both Mac and Windows computers. But I feel like not much was explained about the formats there. If you need to format any disk for windows check the other article: Format an External Drive for both Mac and Windows. But if you are interested what are the other format means. What is the difference between APFS, MacOS Extended, exFAT and what are these subcategories like encrypted, case sensitive or journaled, then keep on reading. I will explain you the differences and which File System to choose on a Mac.
Choosing File System
To choose a file system today is basically choosing between these three options. The other factors, like encryption and case sensitivity, aren’t something you should bother about that much but I will explain it further in the video as well.
APFS, or “Apple File System,” is one of the new features in macOS High Sierra. Now its the new default for Mac and it’s optimized for (SSDs) and other all-flash storage devices,
Mac OS Extended, also known as HFS+, is the file system used on all Macs from 1998 until now.
Fat and ExFAT is the best cross platform option, designed to work on Windows and macOS systems.
APFS, or Apple File System
APFS, or “Apple File System,” is one of the new features in macOS High Sierra. It’s optimized for solid state drives (SSDs) and other all-flash storage devices, though it will also work on mechanical and hybrid drives.
It was first released in 2016, it offers all sorts of benefits over Mac OS Extended, the previous default.
For one thing, APFS is faster: copying and pasting is much faster, also reading a metadata is quicker, for example if you need to find out how much space a folder is taking up on your drive. There are also a number of reliability improvements, making things like corrupted files a lot less common.
So what’s the catch? Reverse compatibility is a problem. 2016’s macOS Sierra was the first operating system capable of reading and writing to APFS systems, meaning APFS is optimised for the Flash/SSD storage used in recent Mac computers, it can also be used with older systems with traditional hard disk drives (HDD) but the compatibility will not be great
If there’s an older Mac you need a drive to work with, APFS is a bad choice for that drive.
And forget about reading an APFS drive from Windows: there might be third-party tools out there for that. But the advantage you getting with speed you will loose with this emulator anyway.
APFS File System Subcategories
There are also few subcategories while choosing APFS format
You have the standard APFS
APFS Encrypted which protects the disk with password so it’s a good option for some sensitive data you want to keep safe.
APFS (Case-sensitive) which is sensitive to file and folder names. So it will recognise differences in files names if you use capital letters instead of a small ones. For example, folders named “Home” and “HOME” are two different folders.
And the last subcategory is their combination of encrypted and case sensitive.
One more advantage is that APFS or APFS Encrypted disks are the preferred format for a Time Machine backup disk. If you select a new backup disk that’s not in this format you will need to erase it and reformat it.
Mac OS Extended
Mac OS Extended, also known as HFS+, is the file system used on all Macs from 1998 until now. On macOS High Sierra, it’s used on all mechanical and hybrid drives, and older versions of macOS used it by default for all drives.
Best for Mechanical Drives, Or Drives Used With Older macOS Versions
Mac OS Extended was the default file system used by every Mac from 1998 until 2017, when APFS replaced it. To this day, it remains the default file system for mechanical and hybrid hard drives, because benefits of APFS aren’t as clear on mechanical drives.
If you’ve got a mechanical hard drive, and you intend to use it only with Macs, it’s probably best to stick with Mac OS Extended. And any drive that needs to work with older Macs, running El Capitan or earlier, should absolutely be formatted with Mac OS Extended,
You might have also heard the name HFS+ which is not use today anymore is a journaling file system developed by Apple Inc. It’s the startup disk’s default file system before macOS High Sierra. Before renaming it to Mac OS Extended. So in newer system you will not find this option on disk utility, When you want to format your max storage
Mac OS Extended File System Subcategories
MacOS Extended actually has extra subcategory feature, Which is called macOS extended Journaled. it protect the integrity of the hierarchical file system and helps your drive avoid file system corruption during unfortunate circumstances.
And than you have the other combinations like previous, You have here combination of
Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrypted) which requires a password, and encrypts the partition.
Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled): Uses the Mac format and is case-sensitive to folder names. Like I explained in APSF disk
And the last option is the combination of all Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted):
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Now let’s have a look at the last category
FAT and exFAT
Fat and ExFAT is the best cross platform option, designed to work on Windows and macOS systems. So if you need to format an external drive to be working on both systems choose one of this options.
FAT
Fat format also known as MS DOS Works universally with all versions of Mac, Windows, Linux, game devices, as well as other devices supporting a USB port. One of the top disadvantages of FAT32 is that it can only work files that are up to 4GB in size. So if you get an error that says “the file is too large for the destination file system,” then it’s probably because the file you’re trying to move or copy to a FAT32 drive is over 4GB. Another disadvantage is that it can’t create drive partitions larger than 32GB in Windows. Although it can create a 2TB drive partition in Macs, it still has the 4GB file limit.
ExFat
exFAT is a good option for external hard drives, especially for large-capacity removable storage devices. It also is frequently used in flash memory drives such as USB flash drives and SD cards. So if you have any larger disk, storage than 32 GB I would recommend to choose this option. If you are looking for a good compatibility between Mac and Windows exFAT it the best.
File Systems Summary
So let’s summarise it with pluses and disadvantages
APFS
+ PLUS
- Default Apple System
- Great for SSD Disk
- Allows Full-disk Encryption.
- Free Space Management
- Fast and Reliable
– MINUS
- No advantages in HDD Drives
- Worse compatibility with older disks and systems
- No compatibility with Windows
MacOS Extended – HFS+
+ PLUS
- Support of all macOS versions
- Default file system for mechanical and hybrid HDD
- Has Journaled subcategory
- Encryption Features
– MINUS
- No access permission control.
- Perfoms slow or crash in dealing with a large number of files.
- Harder for data recovery when corrupted.
FAT
+ PLUS
- Works universally with all versions of Mac, Windows
– MINUS
- Doesn’t support a file size larger than 4GB and a
- Doesn’t support the drive partition larger than 2TB on macOS. And 32GB on Windows.
ExFat
+ PLUS
- Supports the largest partition and file sizes by today’s standards
– MINUS
- Not compatible with old operating systems.
- Not a good option for drives less than 32GB
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