macOS 28 will not support encrypted HFS+ volumes

(support.apple.com)

45 points | by Lihh27 a day ago ago

14 comments

  • edude03 18 hours ago ago

    I wonder why they're removing support for encryption when clearly they have the code for it and still supporting the actual FS

    • wpm 14 hours ago ago

      They're dropping the underlying CoreStorage LVM engine, which was bolted on to HFS+ to support full-disk encryption and later, hybrid SSD/HDD volumes.

  • nerdsniper 20 hours ago ago

    Curious why would someone prefer HFS+ over APFS?

    • blokey 20 hours ago ago

      Because APFS is slllloooowowwwwwww on HDDs. On a 6xHDD promise thunderbolt array, it’s brutally crippling over time.

      One reason is APFS is designed for SSDs and assumes each disk block has an equal latency to read it.

      • neuronexmachina 20 hours ago ago

        I think Apple hasn't sold anything with an HDD for 5+ years though?

        • coldtea 9 hours ago ago

          Billions of externals HDD exist, continue to be sold, and are the best price/performance/durability for external backup drives though?

        • adrian_b 9 hours ago ago

          As another poster already noted, external HDDs may be needed, especially because Apple computers have only puny (or greatly overpriced) SSDs.

          • a96 7 hours ago ago

            Usually both at the same time. Soldered on the board and unchangeable.

        • ChocolateGod 20 hours ago ago

          External HDDs.

        • 20 hours ago ago
          [deleted]
    • badreligion42 19 hours ago ago

      You can access an encrypted HFS+ partition from macOS and Linux machines natively. Very useful for sharing data between Asahi and macOS, and in general between Linux machines and macOS.

      • kasabali 2 hours ago ago

        wasn't hfs read only on Linux?

        • badreligion42 2 hours ago ago

          hfsplus driver supports write for both journaled and non-journaled partitions, though it only mounts r/w by default for non-journaled partitions.

    • lapcat 18 hours ago ago

      It's not necessarily a question of preference. A lot of older disks are HFS+ simply because they're older, so this is breaking backward compatibility.