Disk Utility in Big Sur can turn a 1 TB external disk into 4.5 TB or more of imaginary containers. Sadly it’s just a bug, and here’s how to work around it.
Disk Utility
We don’t know when Apple decided to introduce Big Sur’s SSV, but even now it hasn’t told users it won’t be releasing standalone updates for 11.0.1 or 11.1.
For many, this could be the best reason for upgrading early. Even when it doesn’t go quite as expected, this really isn’t difficult.
Volume layouts are fairly straightforward until you have two or more bootable systems with Volume Groups. Details and advice for those with macOS 10.15 or 11.
Disk structure diagrammed for comparison, from the partition table, to HFS+ and APFS volumes, with further references.
What you need to know about the APFS file system, its containers and volumes, so you can understand errors and how to repair them.
What you need to know about the HFS+ file system, so you can understand error reports and how to repair it using Disk Utility and other tools.
What you need to know about disk formatting using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) to understand its problems and how to repair it.
Apple says that if you run First Aid on a disk, each of its volumes is checked too. Is that really true?
Disk Utility can’t image APFS volumes, and normally returns an error if you try to image a container. Here’s the workaround.
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