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by yehaaa 1811 days ago
You can definitely make snapshots on APFS. It also use checksums for filesystem integrity.
2 comments
Hackbraten 1811 days ago
> You can definitely make snapshots on APFS.

Apple can. I can’t. Making APFS snapshots requires special entitlements, which they’re not going to give me.

> It also use checksums for filesystem integrity.

It doesn’t check integrity of the actual data though. But I care about my data.

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CharlesW 1811 days ago
> Apple can. I can’t. Making APFS snapshots requires special entitlements, which they’re not going to give me.

What makes you think that? Carbon Copy Cloner does this, and is made by a small independent developer.

https://bombich.com/kb/ccc6/leveraging-snapshots-on-apfs-vol...

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Hackbraten 1811 days ago
They have managed to obtain the special entitlement.

Source: https://bombich.com/blog/2018/03/30/building-better-backups-...

They’re one of two apps in the world who have been granted the entitlement as far as I know. The other one is Time Machine.

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yehaaa 1811 days ago
You can use tmutil to create a snapshot.

Or do you want to create an app that performs a snapshot via some API.

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Hackbraten 1811 days ago
One does not simply create an APFS snapshot using tmutil. Using tmutil means Time Machine creates a snapshot for me. It also conveniently earmarks the snapshot for later removal at Time Machine’s own discretion.

That’s not what I want. I want to have a say in snapshot retention, not have some tool make the decision for me.

Specifically, I need precise control over snapshot retention so I can maintain several off-site replicas of my backup.

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EricE 1811 days ago
APFS does NOT checksum the same as ZFS. APFS relies on the SSD controller to checksum/safeguard data. Which is fine so long as all your data is on SSD :p
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