Can APFS really store more on disk using sparse files and clones? Is there such a thing as a free lunch, or do these tricks have a cost?
HFS+
It’s common to want or have to change either the source or destination disk for backups. How well does Time Machine to APFS cope with that?
If there’s one thing we’re learning about APFS, it’s that file sizes are flexible. That means that free […]
Mac OS X has come a long way in the last 20 years, and APFS has just had its 4th birthday. But has this brought the changes we expected?
How to bring a Time Machine backup to its knees: get it to back up a sparse file to an HFS+ disk. It’ll take forever and run you out of free space.
Given their very different structure, backups on APFS disks shouldn’t require routine maintenance. Checking and repair is performed using Disk Utility.
Analysis of the phases of backing up to APFS shows the many similarities with that to HFS+. Crucial differences arise from the use of snapshots as backups.
A blow-by-blow account of what happens when Time Machine in Big Sur performs an automated backup to an APFS volume.
How each of the three different backup schemes used by Time Machine has worked, and how snapshots can work as backups.
How Time Machine has changed since it appeared in 2007, and how backing up to APFS volumes is different now it’s available in Big Sur.
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