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HFS+

How hard disks get slower as they fill up

File data stored towards the periphery of the disk is read and written nearly twice as fast as that near the centre. How to take advantage of this.

May 17, 2022 Macs, Technology

Should you continue using HFS+?

Which is faster with a hard disk: using APFS or sticking with HFS+? Are there any differences in their performance on SSDs?

May 16, 2022 Macs, Technology

Inside Apple Archive: more than a compression format

Provided in Archive Utility and three command tools, its LZFSE compression even supports APFS special files like clones and sparse files.

May 10, 2022 Macs, Technology

Which external storage?

Internal or external? Hard disk or SSD? USB or Thunderbolt? Cooled or compact? Branded or separates? An external boot disk? Do you have a return and refund option?

April 21, 2022 Macs, Technology

A brief history of APFS in honour of its fifth birthday

Born secretly on 27 March 2017, it was Apple’s biggest gamble. Introduced in High Sierra, it didn’t work on Fusion Drives and had other problems. Also explains version numbering.

April 1, 2022 Macs, Technology

How can you trust a disk to write data?

All disks cache data to be written, which makes benchmarking them tricky. It has more serious consequences which macOS tries to allow for in file systems and backups.

February 18, 2022 Macs, Technology

What should you do when your Time Machine backups go awry?

Problems with the file system of Time Machine backups haven’t gone away with APFS. As there’s no way to copy your backup volume, how to tackle such problems?

February 9, 2022 Macs, Technology

Explainer: Disk free space

Confused by this on APFS? So you should be, as it’s complicated by features like snapshots, sparse files, and the file system itself. There’s no single figure.

December 4, 2021 Macs, Technology

How can you check the integrity of backed up files?

T T Read More

For many users, it’s essential to be able to check the integrity of the data which are in a backup. This feature has changed when backing up to APFS.

November 29, 2021 Macs, Technology

Copying a Mac volume to another file system (and back)

Tired of HFS+? Disenchanted by APFS? Why not copy or back up to a different file system? Here are crocodiles waiting to bite you.

November 25, 2021 Macs, Technology

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