APFS on hackintosh with disk hdd

[Cyberdevs]

I tried to run the First Aid in High Sierra on my bootable storage and it froze so I had to reset the pc. I think there must be a bug in macOS High Sierra's disk utility so we have to wait for the next release to make sure.

[Nila]

Yes, running from OS resulted in this in my case also. So I ran it from bootable USB. Let hope to be solved in final release.

[Cyberdevs]

Let's hope so

[Nila]

I have used Hackintosh on my 7200 RPM disk HDD with APFS for more than a month. Didn't see any major error other than 2 or 3 times sudden reboot, a couple of times freezing screen and disk utility FS check hanging the system. These may be a bug in beta version of the OS itself rather than something to do with APFS. So I guess although may not be a wise or beneficial choice but it is not a disaster to use APFS on disk hdd. I don't get why people are thinking that.

[Cyberdevs]

I have used Hackintosh on my 7200 RPM disk HDD with APFS for more than a month. Didn't see any major error other than 2 or 3 times sudden reboot, a couple of times freezing screen and disk utility FS check hanging the system. These may be a bug in beta version of the OS itself rather than something to do with APFS. So I guess although may not be a wise or beneficial choice but it is not a disaster to use APFS on disk hdd. I don't get why people are thinking that.

APFS on a HDD was so slow in first DP and DP2 but since the first PB it got improved. There are some reports that the APFS on first and second DP damaged the HDD completely. It even damaged my USB flash drive.

But ever since the second public beta it's completely ok and now with the 5th public beta it performs even better.

 

So at first it was disastrous. Not anymore.

[lalya]

I installed macOS High Sierra on a 6 GB/s 7200 RPM hdd formatted as APFS and at first it was as slow as expected but after rebuilding the kernel cache and upon reboot the speed is noticeably faster. I just thought that you might be interested,

 

sudo nvram -c

sudo purge

sudo rm -f /System/Library/Caches/com.apple.kext.caches/Startup/kernelcache && sudo touch /System/Library/Extensions && sudo kextcache -u /

sudo update_dyld_shared_cache -force

 

 

Hi cyberdevs, sorry for the off-topic... I would like to ask you if I can safely input the commands above also in my 10.12.6 installation... I have noticed that my system is running a little slower than it used a few weeks ago... do you think that I may give it a go or do I risk anything?? Thanks! and sorry again

[Cyberdevs]

Hi cyberdevs, sorry for the off-topic... I would like to ask you if I can safely input the commands above also in my 10.12.6 installation... I have noticed that my system is running a little slower than it used a few weeks ago... do you think that I may give it a go or do I risk anything?? Thanks! and sorry again

Hi lalya

 

Yes you can run those command on any version of macOS safely, there's also an app that I just created for that very purpose look here

 

I Just suggest you use the 1.0.1 version which is only rebuilding the kext cache and clears nvram. The 1.0.2 is also rebuilding the rebuilding the PrelinkedKernelCache which is safe to run but it's better to run the 1.0.1 if you don't want to rebuild the prelinkedkernelcaceh.

 

Please let me know if you needed more assistance on the subject via PM.

 

Good luck

[ergot]

should i convert my 10.13 to APFS? (running on SSD)

will it cause any issues?

how about new SW installations it will be transparent for them as HFS+ ?

how can i convert to APFS after installation of 10.13?

 

 

Oh i read Pikes article on that...good one thanks

Edited September 2, 2017 by ergot

[Cyberdevs]

1. should i convert my 10.13 to APFS? (running on SSD)

2. will it cause any issues?

3. how about new SW installations it will be transparent for them as HFS+ ?

4. how can i convert to APFS after installation of 10.13?

1&2. APFS is performing much faster than the HFS so you can take advantage on that speed on your SSD. There are some arguments about the safety and integrity of the data on a non-Apple SSD disk drives because of the lack of Apple's firmware on other SSD's and the ECC compatibility on non-Apple SSDs in the long term, but only time will tell. If you backup your data on a separate storage and have a plan for disaster recovery then you'll be safe.

 

According to APFS documentation:

 

 

 

What has Apple done to ensure the reliability of my data?

Apple products are designed to prevent data corruption and protect against data loss.

To protect data from hardware errors, all Flash/SSD and hard disk drives used in Apple products use Error Correcting Code (ECC). ECC checks for transmission errors, and when necessary, corrects on the fly. Apple File System uses a unique copy-on-write scheme to protect against data loss that can occur during a crash or loss of power. And to further ensure data integrity, Apple File System uses the Fletcher's checksum algorithm for metadata operations.

 

 

 

3. Eventually all software manufacturer will optimize their apps for running on the APFS as well as the HFS. (If I understood the question correctly)

4. You can use disk utility to convert your HFS to APFS anytime you want but to revert back to HFS you need to reformat the whole APFS formatted disk.

[fusion71au]

 

how can i convert to APFS after installation of 10.13?

 

 

 

By default, the later beta versions of "Install macOS High Sierra Beta.app" automatically convert from HFS+ to APFS if you do an upgrade install on SSD.

 

If you have High Sierra on an internal HDD as HFS+, the default is to keep it as HFS+ for an upgrade, unless you manually edit /macOS\ Install\ Data/minstallconfig.xml on the target volume...

 

 

	<key>ConvertToAPFS</key>
	<true/>

---> will convert internal HFS+ volume to APFS during the upgrade.

 

If you have already converted to APFS but want HFS+ again, I believe you can use CCC beta to clone from APFS to HFS.

[Gen_]

Eh, He is just saying that Apple will implement ECC in their storage devices, but that's exactly what any other third party solid state device does. ECC is quite standard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive#Controller. So standard that most vendors don't even mention it. https://www.kingston.com/us/ssd/data-protection

 

Apple is simply saying that their storage devices are so good that they won't even bother with implementing data checksum with their apfs.

 

BTW, the command "cp" does not create a clone  of the file, (Hint: Finder does). So, that's not a good example of what he is trying to convey. 

Without being rude, I think you have too much green in your goggles. You should be aware that there isn't any HDD or SSD outside a vacuum sealed magnetically shielded military/interstellar hard drive that is immune to bit rot. ECC checks for errors on the way in or out to see if it was damaged in TRANSIT, but does nothing to check that what it read in the first place is correct, so even the metadata needs a software fix.

 

ECC has existed on all SSDs and HDDs since at least 2001, hasn't changed or improved (it's a static definition) and is pretty irrelevant to filesystem rot. It's main purpose is making sure that any 1 or 0 travelling down the SATA cable isn't disrupted by electromagnetic interference and flipped... put another way it counters people wrecking your data by putting the cable next to magnets.

 

The type of  error correction ZFS (for your data) and APFS deals with (for metadata) is that which happens to data sitting on-disk as a result of quantum effects and other unavoidable errors that happen to everyone more and more often the denser and smaller we make our storage bits and bytes. This is the fundamental reason why ZFS as a filesystem takes 1/3rd of your HDD for checksumming, and Google says it's the reason for well over 60% of freezes and app crashes. APFS protects your filesystem, basically stopping hard resets from damaging filesystem metadata, which is the data that stores 'where your files are', but does not protect the actual content of your data.

 

And to quote Pike in the comments

 

"Listen. APFS is a great filesystem, but there is still work to be done. The fact that Apple didn’t open it up, so that third party tools could be developed, is one of the reasons that I pass. Note that Apple won’t even let you read the S.M.A.R.T data from their flash storage. Why is that? I mean. If you don’t have anything to hide… but wait. The data that I have read out from brand new hardware showed me that Apple hardware is not without failures. And since there’s no checksumming for user data. Just meta data. Another reason for me to pass. In the end. If I lose (some of) my data. Like pictures and what not. Then than is my problem. I can’t bring them back. No third party tools can even give it a try to restore my data. What about Apple? Just read the fine print…"