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GUID Partition Table

Inside APFS: from containers to clones

How APFS containers and volumes work. What hard links, clones and sparse files are, and when they break down.

January 2, 2023 Macs, Technology

Juggling with HFS+ and APFS partitions and volumes: a primer

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The differences between HFS+ and APFS volumes explored. What a container is, and how to add new HFS+ and APFS volumes to a disk.

October 12, 2021 Macs, Technology

Last Week on My Mac: Intricacies of the boot disk

Boot disk volume layout is intricate in Big Sur. M1 Macs lose the EFI partition on their internal SSDs and gain two more for APFS. Contents of /System/Volumes has also changed.

January 10, 2021 Macs, Technology

Inside the file system: 1 Disks and partitions

What you need to know about disk formatting using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) to understand its problems and how to repair it.

October 6, 2020 Macs, Technology

EFI System Partitions: a hidden problem?

What do you know about the hidden and unmounted EFI partition on all the disks you use with your Mac? It could be very important.

June 16, 2020 Macs, Technology

Fusion Drives in APFS

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How does the volume structure differ between Fusion Drives in HFS+ and APFS formats? Does Disk Utility show an accurate picture?

October 15, 2018 Macs, Technology

Disks, partitions, volumes, containers

I’ve got two volumes showing in the Finder. So how come diskutil list tells me I’ve got four disks with a total of 12 partitions?

August 1, 2018 Macs, Technology

What’s a UUID?

They’re almost everywhere now: UUIDs and GUIDs identify disk volumes, printers, even the processes running on your Mac. Here’s an explanation.

August 16, 2017 Macs, Technology
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