IN REPLY TO URQUHARTSo the HFS+ volumes on my internal SSD will get converted to APFS, but other disks will stay HFS+ initially, during installation of the OS update.
YESWould I use Disk Utility to convert any other disks/volumes at a later time? It is not needed for read/write access, but is there benefit? Should I?
YES you can use Disk Utility at any time to convert any given Drive or Volume to APFS.
YES there are benefits to doing so. For example: APFS has its own unique system for recording and managing file versioning that is completely dependent on APFS and independent of Time Machine. (Every time I edit a file on an HFS+ volume and attempt to save it, High Sierra pops up a warning that it can't save the changes and if I want to keep a record of the previous version I will have to save under a different file name. Annoying, but it also reminds me I am giving up fie versioning by having the file on an HFS+ volume.)
I have an
external RAID 0 Striped disk. Does the RAID configuration complicate the file system conversion, if I choose to do it for that disk? Any reason for extra worries? The support department of the manufacturer responded (one week ago) like they haven’t tested that yet, much to my surprise!
Good question, I have a SoftRAID RAID 5 array
and so far SoftRAID does not run on High Sierra. They are aware of the issue and are working on it, but their software is based on an Apple command line function that is changed in High Sierra and SoftRAID has to find a workaround for their software to work. There are multiple threads in Apple's Developers forum indicating Apple RAID does not play nice with APFS. Some have found work arounds but those are not ready for prime time solutions. At the moment I can't even access the SoftRAID array to convert it to Apple RAID. Just turning th drive on creates an immediate Kernel Panic and I hadn't seen a full blown KP in a long time until this came up.THIS JUST IN: SoftRAID 5.6.3 is out and High Sierra compatible. I am working up to testing it with APFS. There are reports of beta testers using Apple RAID that cannot boot High Sierra from an Apple RAID volume. I have not tested that.
IN REPLY TO ARTIE505Does that mean "drive", as in entire drive, or does it really mean "volume"?
Assuming a GUID partition scheme I believe that means "VOLUME". I have not tested this since the APFS/HFS+
option for SSDs was removed from the installer, but I have had both APFS and HFS+ volumes on the boot drive.
For instance, if I were to upgrade my boot volume to HS/APFS, would my HFS+ backup Sierra volume change too? What about an El Cap volume?
The OS version on a
volume has no effect on whether the High Sierra installer will or won't convert it to APFS. Again this was before the option was removed from the installer, but I did install High Sierra on an APFS volume and another non-bootable volume on the same drive remained HFS+.
Not to overlook the obvious a boot volume with Sierra, El Capitan, or any other previous version of OS X/MacOS would of course be unbootable if it were converted to
HFS+ APFS.
Hmmm... I think that "built-in" part is new.
That apparently means that if I install HS on an external SSD it won't be converted to APFS.
The "built-in" part was there when the option was removed from the betas, but I for one didn't fully grock the full implications. However that matches my experience, but before you take that as gospel, I have not tested all possible ramifications with any High Sierra beta, including the Developer's Gold Master, much less all the possibilities with all of the betas. So there is room for error.
TO REITERATE: I am very happy with APFS, its stability, performance, and features. For instance, it appears to make file versioning a a viable reality in every application, significantly reduce storage space demands, and opening up a plethora of future features. I am eagerly awaiting the public release so I can convert my wife's system and our server system to APFS as well.
Now if SoftRAID can only get their RAID 5 drivers to work…🙆â€â™‚ï¸