Although Apple started using the new APFS file system by default a couple of years ago in Mac OS 10.14 Mojave , the Time Machine relief system has keep on to use the old HFS+ file system . The reason is that APFS does not support heavily - linked booklet , a technology Apple introduced just for Time Machine backups .
InBig Sur , Apple has update Time Machine so that you could nowuse Time Machine with APFS - initialize hard drives(and SSDs ) . This has been accomplished through new increase to APFS that appear to be some class of virtual volumes ( Howard Oakley atEclectic Light Companyhas a more detailed account if you are rummy ) .
There is no prerequisite to change to APFS – and if you already have a Time Machine backup with a pot of story doing so would be a tough approximation . There is no direction to convert an HFS+ Time Machine intensity to APFS . The only style to change the format is to reformat the hard drive and start over from wampum .
If you have a Modern substitute disk , however , you could take to format it as APFS and spark off Time Machine , but then you should also know that it can only be used with Macs pass Big Sur or later and not Mojave or Catalina . you’re able to not see the backup intensity on older system at all , you’re able to not even manually go in and extract individual files from the backup .
The vantage of be active to APFS is that Time Machine is importantly riotous . Ars Technicahas tested the speed and on a topically connect gruelling ride , Big Sur with APFS is almost three times faster with the initial backup and four times faster on subsequent incremental backups . The difference is much low for connection driveway .
Some features that antecedently existed , such as the power to cancel private older backups , come along to have vanish . you’re able to not use the terminal control tmutil delete to delete selected transcript , for case to free up blank space on the backup magnetic disk without getting rid of the oldest written matter . This will hopefully be added in recent updates , but as it is today , Time Machine is more complete with HFS+ formatted intemperate drives .
Our summit is to keep on using HFS+ for Time Machine hard drives for the prison term being , specially if you already have one with a backup chronicle . APFS really has no advantages over HFS+ on old - fashioned hard drive , but it is on SSDs that the modern file system can be useful . Although the terms of SSDs have fallen sharply in recent years , it is still much cheaper per gigabyte to purchase a “ regular ” hard drive – and you will hopefully not need to use the backup very often .
For more details about using Time Machine register : How to use Time Machine to back up a MacandHow to mend Mac files from a Time Machine backup .
For substitute backup solutions read : Best Mac Backup Software .
This article earlier appeared onMacworld Sweden . Translation by Karen Haslam .
