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Apple File System

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Re: Apple File System

#81
post #60
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

More problematic is that many case insensitive hard drives would be copied into new machines and there would be millions of conflicts. Some utility would have to sit there and annoy people by asking them to make decisions.

Re: Apple File System

#82
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I'm not sure about snapshots, TM is made to work by just copying the directory structure over, and each backup is a fully functioning hierarchy. But cloning is definitely a big deal.

it doesn't "just" copy the directory structure over each time, it creates the structure for each backup, any files that are changed get copied in, ones that haven't changed are just hardlinked to the existing copies.

Re: Apple File System

#83
I'm notoriously skeptical of anything from the local-filesystem world, and I'm no Apple fanboy, but this looks pretty cool. I look forward to hearing how some of it works, especially what's new about their version of COW and why end-to-end checksumming wasn't mentioned.

Re: Apple File System

#84
post #60
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Steam relies on the filesystem being insensitive.

Re: Apple File System

#86
post #68

Complain if you want, but you seem to forget that it is from Apple. And that makes it somehow better with magical goodness that nobody else could attain. Apple's engineers are not mere humans like every other 'ordinary' tech company would hire. /s

>>And that makes it somehow better with magical goodness that nobody else could attain.

I don't know about that, but there is definitely something magical about these keynotes that makes Apple haters come out of the woodwork.

Re: Apple File System

#87
Uh interesting thought:

With Space sharing and multiple logical volumes there will probably be a shift to encrypting users home directories separately.

Probably even an unencrypted System Base, which is read-only and protected by rootless anyway, so the system can boot without user interaction.

This also finally allows the most user friendly implementation of file encryption: Encrypted Folders, supported by the OS.

Sounds cool, Id be willing to help with a rust port once the source is available :) (case sensitive only - naturally)

Re: Apple File System

#89
post #60
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

For the end-user they could prevent duplicate different-cased file names in the UI layer (the Finder), instead of the file system. That would be a more appropriate place for it anyway.

Re: Apple File System

#90
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

I'm not sure about snapshots, TM is made to work by just copying the directory structure over, and each backup is a fully functioning hierarchy. But cloning is definitely a big deal.

Well, consistency is important too in backups. So TM will probably make a snapshot and do the backup from there. Avoiding moved files from later dirs to already processed ones etc.
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