A major topic at the 2016 WWDC was Apple's new APFS file system that is optimized for Flash/SSD storage, and engineered with encryption as a primary feature, uses a "
unique copy-on-write design" with I/O coalescing, meant to optimize performance while staying reliable along with a
other security and reliability features, and is scalable from the Apple Watch to the MacPro. Since the initial buzz there has been little mention of it from Apple or anywhere else for that matter. That is until this week when it was revealed the iOS 10.3 beta automatically and
without notice, other than a routine warning to backup before installing, converts the file system on iOS devices to APFS when it is installed.
I am running the iOS 10.3 beta, but since the file system on iOS devices is almost totally invisible to the user (I don't know where to look to see what file system is in use on an iOS device) the changeover is unremarkable other than perhaps the upgrade taking a bit longer to complete.
My questions are…
- when will APFS appear in MacOS? Will it be in an update to MacOS 10.12 or toward the end of the year in MacOS 10.13?
- I assume (yeah, yeah I know what happens when you assume) there will still be support for AFS, but will APFS work on rotating rust drives?
- What will APFS do to volume repair and maintenance utilities such as Diskwarrior, Drive Genius, and TechTool Pro or maybe a better question is how will they respond to such a major change in volume architecture and data storage?