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Apple File System

developer.apple.com

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Re: Apple File System

#121

Post by derefr »

ysleepy wrote: post #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. S…

The point of encrypting the base system image is mostly to make it part of the Secure Boot chain. rootless is a policy control to stop processes from modifying the OS from inside. An encrypted system image stops things with hardware access (but not the unlock key) from modifying the OS from the outside. You can trust any disk whose blocks you can decrypt with key X, to have been only written to by someone with key X.

Re: Apple File System

#122

Post by secalex »

PinguTS wrote: post #75
killercup wrote: post #45

> Flash / SSD Optimization I.e., a "unique copy-on-write design" > Space Sharing Basically, ZFS datasets. > Snapshots If those can be sent: Finally Time Machine done right. > The AFP protocol is deprecated and cannot be used to share APFS formatted volumes. Interesting. > An open source implementation is not available at this time. Apple plans to document and publish the APFS volume format when Apple File System is r…

> The AFP protocol is deprecated and cannot be used to share APFS formatted volumes. Interesting. That is really interesting. I recognised with El Capitan that it already defaults to SMB instead of AFP when you don't give a scheme.

AFP is also a security disaster. Check out the spec for "DHX2" https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Networ...

Re: Apple File System

#123

Post by bluedino »

cuddlybacon wrote: post #84
entee wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Does Adobe still?

Re: Apple File System

#124

Post by leonroy »

DannyBee wrote: post #50
cpr wrote: 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…

"FileVault: APFS volumes cannot currently be encrypted using FileVault. " This one is confusing, because this is a logical volume feature. Not sure how or why APFS would ever care that some layer above it is encrypting stuff.

Could be for performance reasons rather than a technical blocker. That said AES-NI instructions do make encryption pretty fast so it's anyone's guess at this stage.

Re: Apple File System

#125

Post by mbakke »

dmix wrote: post #101
Analemma_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

btrfs was available in the Linux kernel in 2009, but didn't see production release in the tinkerer-friendly distros until 2012 and in an enterprise distro until 2015. These things take time: filesystems need to be absolutely bulletproof, especially in the consumer space where (unlike Linux) most users will have no idea what to do if something goes wrong. I'd say Microsoft is still on schedule.

Speaking of which, is there any other good FS to use for desktop Linux (on an SSD on ArchLinux) or is Ext4 still the recommended standard?

Depends on your needs.

Stability, reliability: ext4/XFS

CoW, snapshots, multi-drive FS: ZFS/btrfs

SSD speed, longevity: F2FS

Re: Apple File System

#126

Post by derefr »

skrause wrote: post #19

No checksumming?

Heck, if someone's going whole-hog on file integrity, I'd really like them to support the creation of files that are stored "expanded" by a fountain-code.

Rather than having to RAID-mirror every block on my disk, I'd like to be able to pick just some files and say "please store those ones slightly more redundantly, such that they're protected from bit-level disk errors—they're important."

Re: Apple File System

#127

Post by zrm »

joelg236 wrote: post #107
lewisl9029 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what people were hoping for with ReFS from Microsoft, which released years ago, but that still hasn't happened yet.

Apple has (relatively, you can replace some harddrives) the most control on hardware, so at least from that perspective it's easier for them.

Control over hardware doesn't really buy you anything here. Just about any hardware can use any filesystem with, in the worst case, the requirement that you have a small boot partition using the legacy filesystem.

Re: Apple File System

#128

Post by ryao »

TillE wrote: post #57
cpr wrote: 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.

ZFS needs very little memory to run. Performance is definitely better with more RAM, but the overwhelming use of memory in ZFS is for cache. Eviction is not particularly efficient due to the cache being allocated from the SLAB allocator, but that is changing later this year.

Getting ZFS to run on the Apple Watch is definitely possible. I am not sure what acceptably means here. It is an ambiguous term.

Re: Apple File System

#129

Post by davidbanham »

dmix wrote: post #101
Analemma_ wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

btrfs was available in the Linux kernel in 2009, but didn't see production release in the tinkerer-friendly distros until 2012 and in an enterprise distro until 2015. These things take time: filesystems need to be absolutely bulletproof, especially in the consumer space where (unlike Linux) most users will have no idea what to do if something goes wrong. I'd say Microsoft is still on schedule.

Speaking of which, is there any other good FS to use for desktop Linux (on an SSD on ArchLinux) or is Ext4 still the recommended standard?

I use btrfs as my daily driver.

Re: Apple File System

#130

Post by qmr »

zingplex wrote: post #33
jasonjei wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple says they intend to open-source the file system in the docs. Open Source : "An open source implementation is not available at this time. Apple plans to document and publish the APFS volume format when Apple File System is released in 2017."

Just like they promised to open source FaceTime and iMessages? Apple has a history of making false promises in regards to open sourcing products.

Not sure why you're being downvoted.

Too many fanboys I guess. I would hope the community is more enlightened than that.

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