Turning the data blocks into files and directories, these have common functions and additional features which can give rise to tricky problems.
HFS+
A lot of what Time Machine does when making backups to an APFS volume remains a mystery. So far we don’t understand the magic used by Apple.
Close to the top of my shortlist of new features in the next Apple Silicon Macs is that kernel panics become a thing of the past.
Track down all those duplicated files, and you could save yourself loads of disk space. Rather, you used to be able to. Why this doesn’t work so well now.
How Café and Café are actually different, and only one of those can be a filename in macOS, despite APFS being a non-normalising file system.
A summary of the known benefits and current limitations of Time Machine backups to APFS, with links to more detailed accounts.
Does Big Sur’s Time Machine preserve sparse files and clones when backing up to APFS volumes?
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?
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 […]
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