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blaichch

macrumors member
Jul 26, 2014
96
155
Augsburg, Germany
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Screen Shot 2017-07-16 at 12.15.02.png
 

NJRonbo

macrumors 68040
Jan 10, 2007
3,135
1,155
Just a quick question everyone...

Is Beta 3 safe enough to use on a main drive? I know the old adage, "don't use betas on main machines" but at some point, the betas do become generally stable enough that you can. Are we at that point with Beta 3? Thanks
 

Aquamite

macrumors 6502
Oct 2, 2014
377
172
Th
Just a quick question everyone...

Is Beta 3 safe enough to use on a main drive? I know the old adage, "don't use betas on main machines" but at some point, the betas do become generally stable enough that you can. Are we at that point with Beta 3? Thanks
They never do as long as they are betas.
 

Type4O

macrumors 6502
Aug 23, 2011
346
121
Toronto, Canada
Question: does High Sierra work slower on a HFS drive than an APFS drive? I have it on my iMac which I converted to APFS, works nice, but my Mac Mini did not ask me if I wanted to convert so is still HFS, and is a bit of a slug when opening anything.

My Mac Mini is only a media machine, so I'm likely going to put it back to Sierra, but was wondering if my question is actually a thing.

Thanks
 

vbctv

macrumors 6502a
Sep 25, 2013
840
647
Cleveland, OH
Question: does High Sierra work slower on a HFS drive than an APFS drive? I have it on my iMac which I converted to APFS, works nice, but my Mac Mini did not ask me if I wanted to convert so is still HFS, and is a bit of a slug when opening anything.

My Mac Mini is only a media machine, so I'm likely going to put it back to Sierra, but was wondering if my question is actually a thing.

Thanks
It's weird and I created a post about it because my 2012 MacBook Air is going slow as a snail running APFS but my 2014 Mac mini is running faster than before. Both have 4GB Ram and my Mac mini was upgraded to a SSD. So I think it depends on age maybe or just device to device.
 

macintoshmac

Suspended
May 13, 2010
6,089
6,992
Some apps like Coconut Battery make use of them. I noticed the change when I opened up that app on my High Sierra MBP.

I think that might have come right from beta 1. Although I am unsure if I did see this on 10.12.6 betas that I was running. Someone on 10.12.6 should confirm! :)
 

dinepada

macrumors regular
Jan 23, 2014
126
13
Perú
It's weird and I created a post about it because my 2012 MacBook Air is going slow as a snail running APFS but my 2014 Mac mini is running faster than before. Both have 4GB Ram and my Mac mini was upgraded to a SSD. So I think it depends on age maybe or just device to device.
seems like apfs needs some cpu features available on newer arquitectures, so it will go slow on older machines
 

Caleb531

macrumors 6502
Oct 17, 2009
289
0
This surprises me. A new FS with snapshot supports should allow for a brand new, much faster Time Machine routine. No more symlinks, just snapshots. But it seems Apple hasn't touched TimeMachine with High Sierra, even to the point it doesn't even support APFS. This could have/should have been the showpiece for what APFS snapshots can do. Makes me wonder either Apple really doesn't care about the Mac and isn't putting in the development effort, or they don't care about local backups (instead going all in with iCloud in the future). Either one is not good.

It's worth noting that snapshots don't work across APFS volumes because of how they are implemented at a file-system level. As I understand it, when a snapshot is taken, the system creates additional pointers to the original file blocks. When the user changes a file, new data blocks are written, while the original blocks (being pointed to by the snapshot) are untouched. Restoring a snapshot requires simply setting the file pointers to point to the original data blocks. This makes snapshots faster and more efficient than a full copy, but since they rely on the state of the internal file system, they cannot work across volumes.

That being said, yes, I think snapshots could definitely be utilized to make Time Machine backups more efficient. Data could be copied initially, and then snapshots could be used to store revisions of the data as changes are made and backed up.
 
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thingstoponder

macrumors 6502a
Oct 23, 2014
916
1,100
Level Indicator elements got an overdue flat redesign in High Sierra. They hadn't been touched since Mac OS X Leopard days; seriously out of place in Yosemite, El Capitan, and Sierra.

Old:
View attachment 710152
New:
View attachment 710153

Finally. This reminds me of when they waited a whole year for El Capitan before updating the beach ball. :confused:

They still need to update the terribly dated low battery icon alert. It looks 10 years out of date.
 
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bmac89

macrumors 65816
Aug 3, 2014
1,388
467
Finally. This reminds me of when they waited a whole year for El Capitan before updating the beach ball. :confused:

They still need to update the terribly dated low battery icon alert. It looks 10 years out of date.

They still need to change the “trash” back to “eject” when ejecting an external drive (dragging to trash can)
 

LewisChapman

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2015
600
861
Th

They never do as long as they are betas.

That's unhelpful. The poster is asking a reasonable question, one which I would also be interested in hearing an answer for.

I've used betas since iOS6 and Mountain Lion and there is a point that the betas do become usable on a DD however admittedly often the following OS makes it unusable again.
 

Aquamite

macrumors 6502
Oct 2, 2014
377
172
That's unhelpful. The poster is asking a reasonable question, one which I would also be interested in hearing an answer for.

I've used betas since iOS6 and Mountain Lion and there is a point that the betas do become usable on a DD however admittedly often the following OS makes it unusable again.
The fact that you don't like reality of the facts doesn't make my answer less helpful. Betas are betas and therefore by definition they are never "safe enough to use on a main drive", which is what the user asked.
 
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LewisChapman

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2015
600
861
The fact that you don't like reality of the facts doesn't make my answer less helpful. Betas are betas and therefore by definition they are never "safe enough to use on a main drive", which is what the user asked.

I can certainly see where you are coming from but realistically an answer such as 'It's not been very stable for me' or 'It's running fairly smooth for me' is far more helpful than 'You should never install it'. That is, if you really feel the need to provide a reply down to us from your high horse.

The poster is aware that betas aren't safe and I am sure you are aware that there is in fact a point at which betas 'stabilise' (usually further on in development than this). The poster was asking whether the beta is at that point - his question remains unanswered thus your reply was unhelpful.

Anyway - we digress, let's get back to topic! I want to see some more neat changes :D.
 

Aquamite

macrumors 6502
Oct 2, 2014
377
172
The poster is aware that betas aren't safe and I am sure you are aware that there is in fact a point at which betas 'stabilise' (usually further on in development than this). The poster was asking whether the beta is at that point - his question remains unanswered thus your reply was unhelpful.
That's not the question I was answering but this one:
Is Beta 3 safe enough to use on a main drive?
 

DocoBob

macrumors member
Jul 1, 2017
70
17
USA
That's not the question I was answering but this one:
No, Beta 3 is not good enough to use as your main drive.

And yes, I agree with the other posters that says that no Beta is ever worthy of being on your main drive. As a Silicon Valley developer for 40 years I can tell you that no Beta is ever intended for main drive use, ever, which is why we include the warning. I understand that sometimes it seems like a Beta is safe, but in reality it never ever is. Public Beta is only part of the testing that occurs on software. Public Beta users help us get the testing done faster but the reality is that Silicon Valley has huge testing departments that test software full time. The version of software that is in the Beta is not ever the same software that is released to the general public for use in their Main Drive, the general public actually get a better version than the Beta tester do and it has fixes which are tested by the employees of the software company. The version of software that Beta testers receive really is only intended to be tested and not to be used for a main drive, we often see serious bugs show up after several fixes have already been applied, which is why we had seven or eight Betas IIRC last year, each version was buggy and not suitable for main drive use. If you think that one version f the Beta is better or stable, its just an illusion, there isarewithout a doubt bugs that you just have not been affected by yet, but they are still there waiting to give you a bad day.
 
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