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Re: Catalina to Monterey
MG2009 #61606 05/26/22 04:01 AM
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First: To post a screenshot or other type of image...
  1. Go to https://imgur.com/upload.
  2. Either drag your image into the window, choose (browse for) it, or paste your image or its URL.
  3. Click on Grab Link > Copy Link in the next screen to copy your image's URL to your clipboard.
  4. Create a link using FTM's "Insert Link" tags...5th icon from the right.


You're misunderstanding what you're seeing.

SSD and SSD-Data are components of ONE volume on your Mac. You're seeing 1 TB for each because they both occupy that volume, and macOS reports the same 1 TB for each one.

If you look in a Finder window, you should see only "SSD," which is the combination of the two components, with everything where it belongs. (If you were to examine your Mac's drive while booted into another volume you'd see SSD and SSD-Data as separate "entities," each having its own, unduplicated Monterey components.)

joemike will likely explain all that in detail that I'm unable to match, but this should set your mind at ease for the moment.

If my memory serves me, the format you're seeing was introduced in Big Sur, which explans why it differs from what you saw in Catalina.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Catalina to Monterey
MG2009 #61607 05/26/22 04:07 AM
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Originally Posted by MG2009
EDITED:

I think this is what has happened . . . although, for the life of me, I have no idea why this would have. I certainly made no "requests" to split the FLASH/SSD. confused

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207584
I've been taking your use of "SSD" at face value, but I"ve now got to ask if you're really running a part SSD/part HDD fusion drive? That article isn't relevant unless you are, in which case I'm not certain about my previous post, although I'm pretty sure it's correct in theory if not exact detail.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Catalina to Monterey
artie505 #61608 05/26/22 04:23 AM
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The piece of hardware is called APPLE SSD SM1024L (according to the System Report).

I have posted NINE pix at https://imgur.com/a/jTCX6zh.


Make any sense?


Many thanks,
MG2009
Re: Catalina to Monterey
MG2009 #61610 05/26/22 10:02 AM
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Your drive is a SSD, not a fusion drive, so your linked article is inapplicable.

Your installation as seen in Disk Utility is as it should be, EXCEPT for the bottom item in screenshot #4, the second Apple SSD - Data, which can be seen in the bar chart to be 836 KB.

I've got no idea where it came from, but judging from its size and the fact that it doesn't appear in Finder, it's an empty, extraneous volume that you can control-click on and delete, but you may want to wait for a second opinion.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Catalina to Monterey
MG2009 #61611 05/26/22 04:20 PM
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You are confusing APFS VOLUMES and snapshots with physical drive media, which is easy to do. Please read the following carefully, APFS is a very different animal from HFS+ (MacOS Extended) and can be very confusing to those of us who cut our computing teeth on HFS+. To begin let's start with some explanation of terms.
  • HFS+ (macOS Extended) was designed and optimized for use on rotating rust (a.k.a. HD, HDD) media¹
  • APFS was designed and optimized for use on NVME (a.k.a. Solid State Drive, SSD) media.²
  • Boot Drive in Catalina, Big Sur, Monterey, and beyond must be formatted APFS.
  • Drive the physical device your data is stored on whether it is rotating rust (a.k.a. HD, HDD) or NVME (a.k.a. Solid State Drive, SSD)
  • Partition an allocation of specific physical portion of the available space on the storage media. Every drive has at least one partition.
  • Volume a logical grouping of data on a drive. Every drive has one or more volumes. Volumes share the space on the drive and all volumes have the potential of using the entire physical capacity of the drive but as the space is shared with other volumes the sum of all the volumes on a drive is equal to or less than the total physical capacity of the media.
  • Volume Group two or more volumes can be aggregated into a volume group. Each volume in a volume group and the volume Group itself has its own access privileges, and ownership.
  • SnapShot a view or the unique state of all the files in a volume at a specific point in time. Time Machine no longer backs up files per. se rather it stores Snapshots of the volumes on the system thus reducing the size of each backup significantly and increasing efficiency while still permitting restoration of files from any given point in time.
  • Boot Volume In Catalina, Big Sur, and Monterey the actual boot volume is a sealed and encrypted snapshot with firmlinks connecting to files in multiple volumes on the internal drive.
  • Finder muddies the water as it shows only the Physical structures; Drives and Partitions.
  • Disk Utility shows the structure of the Boot Partition but does not show all of the partitions on the internal boot drive and intentionally hides some of the structure.
  • Some Third Party Utilities such as TinkerTool 7 show the complete structure of the internal boot drive. Yes, all of that is on your internal drive, but you cannot see it because Apple chooses to hide it.


VOLUMES
  • Generally are preferred over partitions as they are far more flexible. (Apple uses some partitions on the boot drive because they are required before the code necessary to use APFS has been loaded by macOS.)
  • Have the potential capacity of the entire drive or partition they are on
  • Shrink or grow as needed physically occupying only the storage space required at that moment
  • Can be added to the drive without affecting other volumes on the drive/partition
  • Can be removed from the drive without affecting other volumes on the drive/partition


when you are initially trying to wrap your head around Volumes, you won't be too far in the weeds to conceptualize a volume as a super folder with the characteristics and privileges of an HFS+ drive or partition. Once you become accustomed to the concept you are unlikely ever partition a drive again.

FOOTNOTES
  1. The implications and permutations of HDDs and data structures used on them could easily occupy a three semester-hour university-level course and is rooted in the concept of [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abstraction_(computer_science)]Abstraction.
  2. Graduate level


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Catalina to Monterey
artie505 #61612 05/26/22 05:05 PM
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Originally Posted by artie505
I've got no idea where it came from, but judging from its size and the fact that it doesn't appear in Finder, it's an empty, extraneous volume that you can control-click on and delete, but you may want to wait for a second opinion.
Correction: Judging from my own installation, I now think the SSD - Data volume on your desktop is the extraneous volume rather than a functional part of your installation. Please double click on it and let us know what you see. I expect it to be empty.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Catalina to Monterey
joemikeb #61616 05/26/22 07:56 PM
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Re: SSD Volumes

------------------------

Well, as you could tell, I was knee-deep in ****. Thanks to joemikeb and arnie for digging me out. Much appreciated.

Boiled down: I do not have what I thought was a "Fusion Drive" with an HD component, which posed much of the confusion for me when I had to "choose" between SSD and SSD-DATA as a location for the Monterey OS during the Recovery installation process. I have a SSD = single partition with Volumes (in the simplest of terms). grin Thanks for clearing that up, Guys.


FWIW . . . . I erased (i.e. zeroed) my Time Capsule and did my FIRST Time Machine backup overnight. One thing, however, is that when I first tried to start the backup, I got a warning that I had TWO drives called SSD. I presumed those to be the SSD and SSD-DATA. I was told I would have to "re-name" one or the other to continue with the backup. Rather than mess with that, I simply excluded the SSD-DATA in the options box in Time Machine. Hit click, and off she went. This morning, all my stuff seems to be as it should be.


Finally, regarding: Your installation as seen in Disk Utility is as it should be, EXCEPT for the bottom item in screenshot #4, the second Apple SSD - Data, which can be seen in the bar chart to be 836 KB . . . it's an empty, extraneous volume that you can control click on and delete, but you may want to wait for a second opinion.


When I click on the SSD-DATA icon on the Finder/Desktop, there are no "visible" contents in SSD-DATA. Keep and ignore, OR delete?

Re: Catalina to Monterey
MG2009 #61617 05/26/22 08:19 PM
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Originally Posted by MG2009
Finally, regarding: Your installation as seen in Disk Utility is as it should be, EXCEPT for the bottom item in screenshot #4, the second Apple SSD - Data, which can be seen in the bar chart to be 836 KB . . . it's an empty, extraneous volume that you can control click on and delete, but you may want to wait for a second opinion.


When I click on the SSD-DATA icon on the Finder/Desktop, there are no "visible" contents in SSD-DATA. Keep and ignore, OR delete?
Delete it by control-clicking on it in Disk Utility and then clicking on "Delete APFS Volume."

Strictly speaking, there's no harm to keeping it, but on the other hand, it can be easily recreated should you need it.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Catalina to Monterey
artie505 #61618 05/26/22 08:28 PM
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My SSD-DATA contains these invisible files . . .


https://imgur.com/a/ilGDLxe



P.S. Sorry, ARTIE (My eyes aren't what they used to be.)


Many thanks,
MG2009
Re: Catalina to Monterey
MG2009 #61620 05/26/22 08:56 PM
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That stuff is just overhead that's automatically inserted into any new volume.

Deleting the volume will have no effect at all...either good or bad. It'll just get rid of a pointless icon on your desktop.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
Re: Catalina to Monterey
MG2009 #61621 05/26/22 09:40 PM
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Originally Posted by MG2009
Re: SSD Volumes

------------------------

Well, as you could tell, I was knee-deep in ****. Thanks to joemikeb and arnie for digging me out. Much appreciated.

Boiled down: I do not have what I thought was a "Fusion Drive" with an HD component, which posed much of the confusion for me when I had to "choose" between SSD and SSD-DATA as a location for the Monterey OS during the Recovery installation process. I have a SSD = single partition with Volumes (in the simplest of terms). grin Thanks for clearing that up, Guys.

The overall structure was more clearly visible in Big Sur, even Finder would show Macintosh HD and Macintosh HD - Data as separate volumes although user's only have read/write permission to Macintosh HD - Data which is where all the third party applications, user data files, and settings reside. In Monterey, Finder, and all well-behaved apps see is Macintosh HD as viewed via firmlinks in the sealed and encrypted boot snapshot, which appears as the single entity, Macintosh HD (you still do not have read/write access to anything other than the Macintosh HD - data volume. All of this hiding and abstraction is intended to further harden macOS from unwanted intrusion by malware and as a side issue provide a relatively simple virtual machine environment for the average user at the expense of a more complex real machine environment for power users and developers to apprehend.


If we knew what it was we were doing, it wouldn't be called research, would it?

— Albert Einstein
Re: Catalina to Monterey
joemikeb #61623 05/27/22 09:26 AM
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Originally Posted by joemikeb
The clean install procedure per se changed and you can upgrade directly from Catalina to Monterey without installing Big Sur, but (there is always a but)...
... you must install Monterey ON THE INTERNAL DRIVE and in so doing may render a Catalina clone on the external drive unbootable. (I have not tried and cannot verify that statement one way or the other.)
Verification: I just booted into the Catalina clone on my external with no issues.


The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire
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