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Apple File System

developer.apple.com

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Re: Apple File System

#53
post #5

> It is optimized for Flash/SSD storage and features strong encryption, copy-on-write metadata, space sharing, cloning for files and directories, snapshots, fast directory sizing, atomic safe-save primitives, and improved file system fundamentals. \o/ Hallelujah, something modern!

I was excited to until I read the limitations section. Can't be used as the startup disk and doesn't work with time machine. Hopefully this with change in the next macOs release.

Copy-on-write and snapshots are excellent building blocks for Time Machine, so much in fact that, when it was announced, I suspected it was because of ZFS (which, at the time, was being considered for OSX). It's very likely TM will be adapted to work on it (with about 20 lines of code)

Re: Apple File System

#54
post #31
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ZFS on OSX was doomed the moment Oracle bought Sun. If you want to know why, just contemplate the smoking wreckage of the Oracle/Google Java API lawsuit.

ZFS is on a completely open source license. Oracle's beef with Google comes from actions that occurred before Java was open sourced. It's hard to see how the two scenarios are even remotely related, other than "Oracle"

A large part of Oracle's case was based on alleging a Google developer had "copied" code that he himself had contributed to Java.

I have to say it's made me a lot iffier on contributing to open source projects, or at least those owned by for-profit companies.

Re: Apple File System

#55
post #17

Could anyone outline advantages and disadvantages comparing to ext4 or other file systems?

It's not HFS. That in itself is a pretty huge advantage.

That's not really a useful statement. HFS+ has worked pretty well for many years and is really well tested. This will be a completely new filesystem, which means it will have lots of new code that can have bugs or incompatibilities with current apps. APFS sounds like it's going to be great, but I think not being HFS is a disadvantage rather than an advantage.

Re: Apple File System

#56
post #12
post #3

Another proprietary filesystem? I was really hoping they'd adopt ZFS fully.

ZFS on OSX was doomed the moment Oracle bought Sun. If you want to know why, just contemplate the smoking wreckage of the Oracle/Google Java API lawsuit.

Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison were best buddies. The dream died the year after.

Re: Apple File System

#57
post #2

Siracusa will finally be happy. ;-) Sounds an awful like like ZFS (zero-cost clones, read-only snapshots) but could it be? I would imagine they'd start from scratch to due IP issues. Clearly this is immature technology they want to get out for testing/evaluation before it's fully adopted even into their own products. (See below.) - - - from the release notes - - - As a developer preview of this technology, there are…

ZFS gobbles RAM and almost certainly couldn't be made to run acceptably on the Apple Watch. No, this seems like something developed from scratch to meet their particular needs.

Re: Apple File System

#58

This should've been in the keynote.

The keynote was for consumers and the press. The 2 PM PT Platforms State of the Union is for developers and will likely go into this more, and if not there is a session tomorrow specifically about it.

Still... Marketing fully-encrypted snapshot-featured filesystem with focus on SSD / Flash, would make much more impact than having "native-tabs" for apps on an event like that.

Anyway I'm not a specialist, just another IT guy, so maybe I'm too opinionated to argue more.

Re: Apple File System

#60
post #46
post #5

> It is optimized for Flash/SSD storage and features strong encryption, copy-on-write metadata, space sharing, cloning for files and directories, snapshots, fast directory sizing, atomic safe-save primitives, and improved file system fundamentals. \o/ Hallelujah, something modern!

Will they deploy it case insensitive, still?

Presumably as with today, you'll have the option. I don't have a strong opinion on case sensitivity of file names, but I suspect they'll keep it case insensitive by default. I think for the average non-technical user that two files, "MyFile.txt" and "myfile.txt", being different could lead to some confusion, and Apple historically has apparently considered that confusion unacceptable.
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