About APFSĪPFS is a file system for Mac computers first introduced with macOS 10.13 High Sierra and used in all Macs with SSD drives that have come out since 2017. One last thing to mention about the Mac OS Extended format is that it isn’t compatible with Windows, so if you want to use a given external drive with both Mac and Windows computers, we do not recommend this format. An HDD can still be formatted to APFS, but it’s recommended to use the Mac OS Extended format for mechanical hard drives (especially if you want to connect those drives to macs with older OS X versions).

This is why it’s strongly recommended to format drives you intend to use with older macOS releases to Mac OS Extended (Journaled).Īlso, note that Mac OS Extended is optimized for mechanical hard drives (HDDs) whereas APFS is specifically created to work well with Solid State Drives (SSDs). Therefore, if, for example, you have an external drive formatted with APFS and a Mac running on macOS El Capitan, your Mac wouldn’t be able to access and read the data stored on the APFS-formatted drive. You see, one of the few problems with the APFS format is that it’s not compatible with macOS releases older than macOS High Sierra. The main reason to still use Mac OS Extended (Journaled) is reverse compatibility. However, Mac OS Extended (also known as HFS Plus or HFS+) is still being used and, though it has a lot of disadvantages compared to APFS, there are several reasons why you may want to format a Mac hard drive (external or internal) to this format. Currently, the APFS file system is the default one in newer Mac models. Since the introduction of the newer, more advanced, and better optimized APFS file system that came with macOS 10.13 High Sierra, the Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format started to get pushed to the sidelines.

Macintosh hd apfs