I've recently found out that APFS is faster than an Extended Journaled. Question is can I clone/restore an Extended Journal external hard drive into APFS format? I have two external hard drives which I use for Time Machine and storage.
If I reformat one to APFS format, can I clone my Extended Journaled into my APFS?
MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.6
> APFS is faster than an Extended Journaled
MacOS Extended (GUID) is way faster than APFS on spinning old HDDs so it is recommended for HDD data-disks. But macOS 10.14 Mojave or later insist using APFS so that is the only choice for system boot disks although the system is then way too slow for daily use (Mojave clone works on MacOS Extended but does not support any Mojave updates).
For new SSD disks APFS should be used (unless it is used as a data-disk for macOS 10.12 Sierra or older that do not support APFS).
You can use apps like Carbon Copy Cloner to clone data between MacOS Extended <-> APFS.
Time Machine volumes have their own quirks I don't comment here because I use CCC for all backups.
A clone is an exact copy. As you're chaining the underlying disk format then it wouldn't be an exact copy. So, no. You would format the disk first and then copy the data over.
Can I clone/restore a Mac OS Extended (Journaled) external hard drive into APFS format?
