Actually this is old news as it was brought up in several Apple warnings about APFS. Still good as a reminder since converting a Time Machine drive to APFS very nicely destroys the LINKs that Time Machine uses to store file data. To convert a hard drive or external hard drive to APFS, we even needn't download any software, use command line in terminal or back up files in advance. Just finish the 3 steps below: 1. Open Disk Utility and find the drive that we want to convert to APFS. Launch the Disk Utility app from the Utilities folder of your Applications folder, or use Spotlight to find it. Select the drive (left side window pane) and select the “Convert to APFS” option from the drop-down list. If option is not available or greyed out then please read this article. Advantages of Converting to APFS. APFS offers a ton of benefits that you don’t find in HFS+. Moreover, it is also the recommended file system for SSDs and flash drives. The following are some of the advantages that you can avail of by converting to APFS. Fast Duplication and Copying: APFS is a lot faster than HFS+. It can copy and duplicate.
*Convert Hfs To Apfs High Sierra
*Can't Convert To ApfsMarch 20, 2018
APFS, short for Apple File System is a new file system implemented on Mac OS 10.13 High Sierra. It brings with it a number of advantages over HFS+; a previous file system by Mac OS. Most notable advantages are reliability and more resistance to data corruption due to bugs and power failures.
How to convert an external hard drive to APFS
If you install macOS High Sierra on an SSD drive of a Mac, then the drive will automatically convert into APFS file system. In other cases, you can follow the steps to convert to APFS manually.
*Open Disk Utility and click on View at the upper left corner
*Click on Show All Devices
*Select the external hard drive to convert to APFS and click the Partition button
*Double check if the scheme is set to GUID Partition Map and set the format to Mac OS Extended Journaled
*Then click on Apply > Partition
*Right click on that partition and select Convert to APFS
This will convert your external hard drive to APFS file system. To verify, right click on your external drive and select Get Info. In general, you should see Format: APFS if it is successfully converted.
Can data be lost on APFS file systems in MAC?
Despite increased resistance to data corruption in APFS, data can still be lost due to errors in partitioning or formatting the drive. Improper upgrading or reinstalling of operating systems may at times lead to data loss scenarios. Another common cause for data loss is the presence of bad sectors on the drive. When encountered with such situations, it is helpful to know what data recovery tools like Remo Recover can do for you.
How can Remo Recover Mac help you in data loss situations?
*Remo Recover Mac is a hard drive recovery tool to recover deleted or lost data. It can also be used for non-mounting and inaccessible hard drives as well. It can recover data lost due to format or partitioning errors, improper OS installs errors etc.
*At times, your hard drive may contain bad sectors due to logical damage. In such cases, Remo Recover creates disk images bypassing such sectors. Disk images can then be used to retrieve lost data.
*In addition to recovering files from external hard drives, it can also recover data from USB’s, memory cards and other storage devices. This article describes in detail how to recover lost files from USB flash drive on Mac.
*In addition to supporting APFS file system, it also supports old file systems such HFS, HFS+ etc. on Mac.
It supports data recovery from Mac Book Pro, Air, Mini, iMac and other Mac devices. The software can be used with various brands of hard drives like Seagate, SanDisk, WD, Buffalo etc.The initial goal and converting APFS to HFS+
I wanted to use Time machine for Mac OS backups for the first time. Time Machine backup does not currently work with a partition formatted with the new APFS format from Apple. The external drive and partition I wanted to use for Time Machine backups had a partition formatted as APFS because I had used it to boot Mac OS. The solution was to convert it to HFS+ (also known as Mac OS Extended). This is a destructive conversion but I no longer needed the drive for booting Mac OS on an external drive.
I used the instructions here for converting the partition to HFS+. This basically involves “erasing” the partition (and selecting HFS+ or Mac OS Extended) with Disk Utility in Mac OS. After the conversion, Time Machine worked fine for backing up to that partition on my external hard drive.Unfortunate side effect
The unfortunate side effect was that the exFat partition I had on the external drive could no longer be seen by Windows for reading/writing. The behavior was strange. Disk Manager in Windows could see the drive and the partition but couldn’t do anything with that partition (and no drive letter was assigned). When I right clicked that partition (in disk manager), and selected “Change drive letter” or “Properties”, nothing happened. What went wrong and the solution
Apparently, somewhere along the way of converting the APFS partition to HFS+, the exFAT partition became inactive. The easy fix was to make the exFat partition active. I used MiniTool Partition Wizard (free version) in Windows to mark it active. Then ejected the drive, unplugged it and plugged it back in, and it suddenly was seen by Windows (10).
See other posts on Mac OS:Convert Hfs To Apfs High Sierra
The external drive I was using is a Lacie Rugged Thunderbolt USB-C 2TB 130MB/S from AmazonCan't Convert To ApfsFollow me: