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Unix File System Issues on Mac OS X?
rlthomps-1 asks: "I've been thinking about reformatting my Mac's hard drive in UFS, since I've seen the option on the install screen. I was looking for advantages of the Unix file system since it sounds like it would have better performance over HFS+. After viewing this Apple kbase article I wasn't so sure. A test system at work won't install software correctly because the drive name is stuck as '/' among other problems. Why would Apple include the UFS option if it offers such reduced functionality, and is anyone out there using it for non-server applications? What for? Are there advantages to UFS on the desktop Mac OS?"
Also understand that many carbon applications have trouble coping with non-HFS+ file-systems. Here in the lab, I mount my solaris home directory thru NFS, and some carbon apps cannot start from my home directory because of this. Some carbon applications even have trouble with files in this file-system (on bad days Acrobat Reader tells me the file does not exist).
As applications and system frameworks become more file-system agnostic. I suspect Apple will probably put less emphasis on HFS+ and put more effort in other file-systems.
When Darwin was built, Apple used FreeBSD 3.2 has its core BSD os, since then many changes where applied in the UFS code in FreeBSD (softupdates are the ones comes to mind). Since then Apple's version of UFS has not change too much.
HFS+ is Apple's MacOS native enhanced file system. So if you need to run Classic, if you need to run carbonised application that do have a resource fork then you need an HFS+ partition (see Mozilla's readme).
If you're more a unix guy like and want to compile OSS, host some CVS reposiroty then you 'll need UFS.
UFS is case sensitive. HFS+ is not (it might seems to be but is not). I'de say for all macos Apps use HFS+ an create a second UFS partition where you'd put all your unix apps and other unix related stuff (CVS etc
Other references can be found
none Yet.
it is primarily to be used if you are running a web server. Apache is better tuned for UFS than HFS+.
Use HFS+ if you are going to use it as a desktop. Many apps including Office will have problems because they expect a HFS+ system supporting Type/Creator info.
I thought along the same lines... It is Unix, so UFS should be better... So, I formatted my iBook and went with UFS.
I was wrong. All of the mac applications run much better under HFS. Things like Appleworks need an HFS partition so they work with OS 9 as well as X. And mozilla still won't run in a UFS partition. As of version 10.1.3 (not exactly sure which one I tried) there were still a LOT of problems with UFS. I got a lot of data corruption on my UFS partition. Also, disk IO seemed a lot slower than with an HFS partition. The system kept getting slower and slower.
Finally, I reinstalled again with HFS. All of my troubles went away. In my opinion, don't use UFS unless you have a really important reason to do so.
The most important reason to stick with HFS+ is that a UFS drive cannot boot back into OS 9, and does not support Classic. (Also, HFS+ is faster)
Reality has a liberal bias
Apple includes UFS becuase all Cocoa applications will run correctly with UFS, and Carbon applications (if written correctly) will also run correctly. Apple uses its previously published standards (see Netatalk list archive for a discussion) to seperate the data and resource forks. The problem is that many MacOS applications--and the entire classic environment--require HFS compatibility. Many applications will not even install onto a UFS drive. If your environment is mostly Unix, and you are a developer or a web designer, having the same case-preserving, case-sensitive file system symantics that other Unix implementations may be a benifit. Otherwise, stick to HFS+. I, for one, have signed and recommend that other sign the Metadata petition which calls for Apple to move towarsd a modern file system which has multiple streams (as apposed to two fixed streams) and a generalized metadata implementation a la BeFS or Attributed FS to provide the core HFS compatible metadata with the ability to extend the metadata use into new areas. A journaled file system would also be a plus. HFS+ is a reasonably efficient and Unix like file system. The only difference is the case-preserving, case-insensitive file symantics, which is arguably (many discussions abound) is preferable for a GUI, and human UI in general.
A big bonus would be implementing posix compliant multiple stream bsd userland commands like cp so that you don't axe your resource fork when you cp a file from the command line, etc.
I was trying to get UMN Gopherd running on my OS X box awhile back, and one neat trick that was suggested to me by the maintainer of the package that helped was to use the Disk Copy application to create a virtual UFS device. I dragged the files I wanted to compile into my virtual drive, cd'ed into it, did the make thing, and presto: it compiled beautifully. Even neater is that I could still install it into the standard hierarchy, which was hfs+ formatted, and it still ran just smooth.
So my advice is this: format your drive hfs, and when you need to do a project that requires UFS, simplly create a big enough blank UFS drive using Disk Copy, and do your work in it. Talk about having your cake and eating it too!
...mmmm... cake.....
Second, I cannot recommend UFS for a root partition. Too many installers rely on the root partition being HFS+. They give errors about not being able to install on a "network file system" (which should be possible regardless). I had my system set up with several UFS partitions and no HFS+ partition at all, and ran into problems trying to install a bunch of stuff I genuinely wanted. So I gave up and made my root partition HFS+.
What I recommend, however, is that only the root be HFS+. My /Users partition is UFS. A couple of other partitions are UFS. I ordered an external FireWire drive and the several partitions I will be putting on it (including /Library, /Applications, and /Developer) will all be UFS.
(For those who are worried about /Library being externally mounted -- I haven't figured out what difference Apple intends there to be between /System/Library and /Library since both seem to be used identically, but I have chosen to treat /System/Library as containing things central to the running system such as StartupItems and Extensions, and /Library to be things related to applications, such as Application Support and Fonts.)
To maintain my various UFS partitions, I have an /etc/fstab and run fsck -p in the Disks StartupItem. I've been doing things this ways for months and it seems to work quite nicely. I will mention that I do not use any Classic applications, so having partitions (such as my home directory) visible from Classic is not a concern. YMMV.
UFS was included for those few people who needed a real, genuine, Unix file system. It has the "real inodes" and the case sensitivity that Unix apps expect. But (as far as I know), directories are stored as files with a special attribute, all over the disk, just like the MS-DOS FAT file system does. It does things this way after all this time because that's the way Unix has always done things.
HFS+, however, is an extension to HFS to give it a few extra things that it needed to become a serious file system. Stuff like support for volumes larger than 2G, really long file names, Unix file attributes, etc. HFS stores directories in a B-tree file. In other words, it uses a database. This is much more efficient than a bunch of scattered files and inodes holding directory information.
Basically, if you don't know a specific reason why you need UFS, don't use it.
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