Detailed account of disk, volume and folder layouts on Big Sur’s boot disks, complete with roadmaps which are downloadable as PDFs.
file system
Diagrams of the layout of volumes on boot disks for macOS 10.13 to 11, covering both Intel and M1 models.
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.
Explaining inodes, names, dates, permissions, file types, and specialised attributes used for iCloud.
A complete guide to the structure and layout of APFS startup disks from High Sierra to Big Sur (Intel), together with tear-out PDF charts.
Important update for all users, which addresses several bugs in setting the maximum size of sparse bundles.
How to set the total size, and band size, for your sparse bundles, with calculation of the critical band size.
Five different classes of metadata, from file system attributes to embedded Info.plist files, explained and explored.
How your Mac’s security and privacy systems can cause duplicate copies of files to be written to your backups.
Do changing permissions or an extended attribute also alter a file’s modification date?
