exFat or APFS for SSDs Used with macOS/Pro Tools

[skylar_battles]

I received a dialog box warning the other day on my Samsung T9 4TB that concerned me (should’ve screenshoted) so I’m realizing I need to have all files on 2 drives in case 1 fails. I did run First Aid on the drive and no errors were found but safe is better than sorry of course.

So I bought a duplicate drive and plan to use ChronoSync to sync the 2 drives after working off of 1 of the 2.

According to the Drive Requirements with Pro Tools, ”Audio drives (any drives used with audio recording or playback or transfer) should be formatted either APFS or*HFS+ Journaled (not case-sensitive) for Mac,*NTFS for Windows”

The Samsung T9 I’ve been using is formatted in exFAT and has been working fine with record permissions in Pro Tools as far as I can tell, but it’s not mentioned as a supported format by Avid.

Also I have the issue that seemingly many others have with exFAT SSDs where in Finder's “Get Info”, it just says "you have custom access" instead of the normal permissions options where you can choose read and write permissions. Kind of concerning. I’ve also seen posts talking about that Sonoma with exFAT causes massive issues. I’m still on Ventura.

With all that being said, should I backup and erase my main drive and reformat it to APFS and then change the backup drive to APFS as well?

Or just leave the main drive on exFAT, and start doing ChronoSync with the 2 drives?

[JFreak]

APFS for SSD, always.

[dominicperry]

I hadn't seen the T9's - somewhat aggravating that Samsung is concentrating on speed way beyond what most desktop interfaces can manage, whilst not moving past the very old 4GB barrier, and not investing in longevity and reliability - their own product page doesn't stipulate whether this is a MLC, TLC or QLC drive and neither do any of the reviews I've stumbled across.

Anyway, to answer your question, if you are going to exchange files with PCs, exFAT is the option of choice. Otherwise, APFS is a much better option.

The Avid advice on this is out of date - you have to go way back to find an OS that can write HFS and Catalina is the last MacOS that can read it.

For Mac-only drives, everything I have is APFS and I have one external set aside for swapping files with PCs, which is exFAT.

PS, Apple made a mess of this for a long while - in particular Time Machine disks would have to be an old format (probably HFS, can't remember) when the system disk was APFS. But everything is APFS now, and you should do that. When you say "Main Drive" do you mean your internal system disk? I can't believe you are using exFAT for that......

Dominic

[smurfyou]

Originally Posted by dominicperry

The Avid advice on this is out of date - you have to go way back to find an OS that can write HFS and Catalina is the last MacOS that can read it.

That's HFS "classic". Avid states HFS+ which is still supported for read and write. Just not for the system drive.

But yes for SSD just use APFS.

ExFAT can work if you're going back and forth between Mac and PC but has some quirks on the Mac side. Better for transfer drives rather than working drives.

[Rich Breen]

Originally Posted by skylar_battles

...
So I bought a duplicate drive and plan to use ChronoSync to sync the 2 drives after working off of 1 of the 2.
...
With all that being said, should I backup and erase my main drive and reformat it to APFS and then change the backup drive to APFS as well?
...

Of course you should always have at least one backup. One thing to note: be absolutely certain that your backup drive is offline anytime you're doing anything other than backing up, otherwise you run the risk of unknowingly using files off the backup drive, then erasing over them when you back up from the primary drive - I've seen it happen dozens of time.


And, as others have said, APFS is preferred on any modern SSD.

[dominicperry]

Originally Posted by smurfyou

That's HFS "classic". Avid states HFS+ which is still supported for read and write. Just not for the system drive.

Good point, but HFS+ support is still there in the OS for legacy compatibility, it's not a good choice for a new system. APFS has been out for 7+ years now.

I agree with everything else you wrote, in particular exFAT.."Better for transfer drives rather than working drives".

Dominic

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by dominicperry

I hadn't seen the T9's - somewhat aggravating that Samsung is concentrating on speed way beyond what most desktop interfaces can manage, whilst not moving past the very old 4GB barrier, and not investing in longevity and reliability - their own product page doesn't stipulate whether this is a MLC, TLC or QLC drive and neither do any of the reviews I've stumbled across.

I have no idea what you mean by "not investing in longevity or reliability". Samsung is a leader in 3D NAND fabrication and one of the companies consistently pushing things forward.

IIRC these uses Samsung's 6th gen V-NAND technology. Well proven/older V-NAND technology the same as used in the 980Pro M.2 drive, and updated versions used on the 990Pro. Hopefully helping Samsung maximize return on that development and fab costs. Normally TLC, but they'll also run the same 3D NAND as SLC caches.

The company that I worry about is Western Digital, and the depth of their technical problems, mismanagement and misrepresentations are yet to come out in the multiple lawsuits against them.

2TB-4TB is the consumer sweetspot, The 4TB T9 drive is packed with 4 x NAND chips, they seem to want to stick with this physical form factor. So going to have to use denser NAND packaging to increase it's capacity. It's pretty hard to complain about 4TB @ ~ 2GB/s I/O at $330 (if you have USB 3.2 2x2).

USB 3.2 2x2 (20 Gbps) is the low cost fastest option for external storage today. It's backwards compatible with USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) or Gen 1 (5 Gbps). The hassle there is really Apple does not support Gen 3.2 2x2, maybe in part out of spite over USB vs Thunderbolt and heck they are struggling to get USB Gen 2 to work correctly. There should be much less problem finding PCs with USB 3.2 2x2 support or adding a PCIe card into a desktop PC. But yes if you want higher performance you are going to be on Thunderbolt today, and it's then everything is going to flip there anyhow with USB 4 v2/Thunderbolt 5. Hopefully we'll see wider availability of support for USB 4 v2 80 Gbps outside of the closed Apple ecosystem that will help continue to push on the economics and market competition. And hopefully Apple can sort out all their USB issues.

[skylar_battles]

Thanks for your responses everyone! I was able to successfully format the drive to APFS with the GUID Partition scheme and successfully open a recent sessions with no missing files.

Dominic, I don’t disagree as the specs of this drive with a modern Mac, you can only reach half of the speeds boasted in the specs that would work on many modern PCs. I was just hoping for reliability with Samsung! And by main drive I meant my external SSD that I’ve designated as my main. The internal on this newer Mac is of course APFS!

Now that I’m looking over all of this, I see that one of my old LaCie SSDs is formatted in MacOS Extended. Should I also reformat it to APFS to not lost the ability to access those files in the future?

Thanks everyone!

[Darryl Ramm]

This has pretty much already been answered in this thread.

You "lose stuff" on exFAT as the file system is just not able to support all capabilities that Pro Tools needs. Well documented not to be supported. Discussed lots in the past on DUC. Good you are now off it.

Both HFS+ or APFS provides all that Pro Tools needs. And you can choose either of them. The problems with exFAT are entirely different than choosing HFS+ or APFS.

APFS is a much more modern file systems, ultimately more robust and more performant on SSD drives, especially faster SSDs, however you may never notice a difference. And neither should cause you to be "unable to access file in future".

As stated several times here already APFS is the better choice for SSDs. So up to you. If you need backwards portability to access on older Macs keep it HFS+. If not don't. Do not change this without having separate independent backups you can recover if stuff goes wrong.

And before doing anything else you have checked the bloody SSD firmware is up to date right? https://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=425632