File system Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Mac 101: Format choices for USB flash drives

by Chris Rawson (Sep 19th, 2011)

The overwhelming majority of USB flash drives you buy are going to come in one of two formats: FAT32 or NTFS. The first format, FAT32, is fully compatible with Mac OS X, though with some drawbacks that we'll discuss later. If the drive comes formatted in NTFS, which is the default file system ...

Apple post server-related updates for Xsan and Mail Services

by Joachim Bean (Dec 18th, 2009)

Apple yesterday posted a few new server-related updates for Xsan and Mac OS X Server. The first, Xsan 2.2.1, improves file system reliability and cvfsck repair utility. This update is available for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard and Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. There's also an updated version of the Xsan ...

ZFS project for Mac OS X discontinued

by Joachim Bean (Oct 23rd, 2009)

Is it a forgotten project? A fit of open-source pique? Or is it just that everyone got really busy on other stuff? Looks like Apple has just shut down the ZFS project for Mac OS X. The site for the project on Mac OS Forge reads: ZFS Project Shutdown 2009-10-23 The ZFS project has been ...

TUAW Tip: Check the list of files that get installed on your Mac

by David Chartier (May 18th, 2007)

Most Mac OS X users appreciate the simplicity of Mac application installation; it usually involves nothing more than a drag and drop out of a disk image, or simply unzipping a download. Still, some apps, plug-ins and other digital goodies require an installer, which means you're entering your ...

ZFS in Leopard?

by Mat Lu (Dec 17th, 2006)

The French site Mac4Ever appears to have found evidence (in the newest developer release) that Leopard will include the ZFS file system to supplement HFS+. What is ZFS you ask, and why should you care? Well ZFS is a pretty darn cool next generation file system created by Sun that includes a variety ...

TUAW Tip: Mac OS X can verify itself now

by David Chartier (May 31st, 2006)

Disk Utility is a great maintenance and troubleshooting tool for those times when your Mac starts acting up. Repairing permissions can sometimes be handy (even though its true validity is in question as of late), but using the Verify and Repair Disk operations is often a more useful tactic. However, ...