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Alper
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APFS has no advantage over HFS+ (macOS extended) and vice versa in terms of performance when it comes to hard disks (non-SSD drives).

However, macOS Sierra (10.12) or older can not access APFS-formatted disks. On the other hand, though unlikely in the foreseeable future, it is possible that Apple might drop support for HFS+ in some future versions of macOS. Should this happen, you may not be able to access your hard disk from one of the newer versions of macOS in some distant future if you format it in HFS+. In addition, AFPS is said to be less prone file corruption issues than HFS+. I recently had to erase everything on a HFS+ external drive due to corruption issues and reformat it.

In summary, if you are planning to access your hard disk from a computer running on macOS 10.12 or older, then format it with HFS+. Otherwise, go with APFS.

There are more details in this article titled "APFS vs Mac OS Extended – Which Mac Disk Format Is Best?" (1) from switchingtomac.com if you need more information.

P.S. If you were to use this hard disk with Time Machine, than HFS+ would be your only option if you are using macOS 10.15 (Catalina) or older. Time Machine works with APFS only for macOS 11 (Big Sur).

Alper
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