• Apple Final Cut Pro Legacy

  HFS+, HFS+ Journaled, etc…

  Posted by Andrew Clark on September 20, 2012 at 5:23 am

  Hello –

  What are the major differences between HFS+ and HFS+ Journaled?

  I’ve been perusing around online about this and it SEEMS to me that HFS+ is quicker (Write/Read times) and would be best suited for multimedia tasks (i.e., video, photo, music editing)….is this correct?

  What would you all recommend?

  Any suggestions / advice would be more than appreciated.

  Thanks!!

  Jérôme Lamarque replied 8 years, 7 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Rafael Amador

  September 20, 2012 at 4:22 pm

  If you are formatting an HD for Mac, you have to format it as “Mac OS Extended”.
  HFS are for PCs.
  Journaled adds an extra files listing system (?).
  Some time ago, when HDs were slow, media HDs used to be formatted as not Journaled.
  In theory Journalling could slow down files access.
  I don’t think today will be any difference and Journalling should ensure more consistent file structure managing.
  rafael

  http://www.nagavideo.com
• 

  Andrew Clark

  September 20, 2012 at 4:52 pm

  Thanks for the reply / info. Rafael.

  I should expand upon my original post a bit here:

  Looking at Disk Utility, I see the only options are:

  – Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
  – Mac OS Extended (Journaled, Encrytpted)
  – Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled)
  – Mac OS Extended (Case-sensitive, Journaled, Encrypted)
  – MS-DOS (FAT)
  – ExFAT

  So it looks like there is no option to format a drive as NOT JOURNALED.

  Now the options for formatting appear a bit different in my Promise RAID unit (it’s the R4 TB unit).

  First, it gives me the option to select the Partition Type:
  – GPT
  – APM
  – MBR

  Second, it gives me the option to select the Format Type:
  – Journaled HFS+
  – HFS+
  – Case sensitive HFS+
  – Case sensitive Journaled HFS+

  Kind of baffled by which selection would be best utilized for video.

  Any suggestions?
• 

  Rafael Amador

  September 21, 2012 at 11:42 am

  Andrew,
  I guess you are on Lion or Mountain Lion, which, for what you show, has changed many things and gives options that I have not available in SL.
  Sorry i can’t help you on your decision.
  I would recommend you to post on the “Arrays & raids” forum:

  https://forums.creativecow.net/raid
  rafael

  http://www.nagavideo.com
• 

  Jérôme Lamarque

  October 16, 2017 at 4:07 pm

  Hello folks,

  To clear things up, here are the file systems used by Apple:

  MFS a.k.a. Mac File System (1983-1985).

  HFS a.k.a. Hierarchical File System a.k.a. Mac OS Standard (1985-1998) defunct since macOS Sierra.

  HFS+ a.k.a. Hierarchical File System Plus a.k.a. Mac OS Extended(1998-2017) introduced with Mac OS 8.1.

  APFS a.k.a Apple File System since March 27, 2017 introduced with iOS 10.3 and default filesystem on Macs sold without Fusion Drives.

  Regarding the partitions:

  GPT: GUID Partition Table used to start Intel Macs since their introduction in 2006 and what you should use.

  APM: Apple Partition Map used to start PowerPC Macs since their introduction in 1994.

  MBR: Master Boot Record used on Windows and DOS PCs.

  Sources:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchical_File_System
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HFS_Plus
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_File_System
  /Applications/Utilities/Disk Utility

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