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I would like to perform daily snapshots that I can revert to if someone:

  • downloads Malware
  • installs buggy software
  • etc.

Does such a thing exist? Is there a roadmap for it?

I have a Fusion drive so that would affect my personal situation but I am just asking the general question.

Stephen Rasku
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2 Answers2

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Apple's new file system, APFS, supports snapshots. Per their documentation:

enter image description here

APFS is available in 10.12.x (Sierra) as a Developer Preview and as a released product in 10.13.x (High Sierra).

Earlier than Sierra, if you need to make a "point in time" backup, it's best to run Time Machine to ensure a good backup.

Allan
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  • Thanks for the answer. I have Sierra but, reading the documentation, it's only available as a Developer Preview. That means a couple of things: 1. You can't put it on your boot drive; and 2. You can't put it on a Fusion drive. – Stephen Rasku Jun 03 '17 at 16:51
  • APFS can not be used on a startup volume though. (Yet?) – Kent Jun 03 '17 at 20:29
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    @StephenRasku: Look for announcements about APFS at WWDC next week. My guess is that in 10.13 it'll be usable as a startup volume, but will probably not support Fusion Drive. Fusion Drive is built on top of Core Storage, and APFS doesn't use that. Also, Fusion Drive is really a stopgap for the period when SSDs aren't big enough to be the sole storage device, and need to be paired with a big HD; APFS is really intended for the pure-SSD future. P.S. I reserve the right to delete this comment on Monday, when it turns out I'm completely wrong. – Gordon Davisson Jun 03 '17 at 21:33
  • When I last checked, APFS was still a developer preview technology – not production quality – in pre-release macOS 10.13. – Graham Perrin Aug 10 '17 at 06:01
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If you can't wait for APFS, you could look into OpenZFS, an implementation of Sun/Oracle's ZFS filesystem. It seems like you can make it work on a macOS boot drive (don't know about Fusion drives), though it's certainly not trivial.

calum_b
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