Help with drive partitioning

[RetiredInFl]

New to the MAC world after close to 30 years on PC's. I need help with re-partitioning (or whatever you guys call it) my external SSD drive.

I simply want to combine/add/expand/extend the ~4GB "untitled" unused part of the partition into the Time Machine partition. All 4 volumes (drives? ) you see in the image are on a single external SSD. Latest update Ventura 13.5.1 on a Mac Mini M2 Pro if it matters. I'm sure there is a simple answer, just missing it or having a mental block.

Thank you!
R.I.F. (75yr old MAC Newbie!)

 

[gilby101]

In APFS speak:
Your drive (Samsung...) has 2 visible partitions. Both partitions are formatted as APFS containers - Container disk7 and Container disk4.
Container disk7 has 4 volumes. These are sharing the total space allocated to the container. Flexible, but any of the 4 can fill the container - and you don't want that!
Container disk4 has 1 volume.

Here is what to do:

Think about what you will do if you make a mistake (or my instructions are wrong) and important data gets deleted.

In Terminal run the command diskutil list. This will show you same as Disk Utility but with a bit more detail.
You are good to proceed so long as disk4 is after disk7 and there is nothing between them. If that is not true (or you are unsure), post the output and we (you, I and anyone else) can have a think about it.

If Untitled has anything of value, mount the volume and save the content somewhere else and dismount it. We are going to delete it!

Close any applications using the 4 volumes and temporarily disable your backup apps (Acronis, CCC and TM).
In Disk Utility (or Finder), dismount all the volumes (Acronis, etc). Possibly not necessary, but makes sure your disk is not being used.

In Disk Utility, select the drive (Samsung), and click the partition button near the top right.
This will show a pie with the two partitions. disk4 should be very small in the "5 to 12" position.
Select the disk4 container and click the minus button and yes to any prompts. This removes the partition. So do it carefully! Its share of the pie is very small, with makes selection a bit tricky.

You now have free space and can expand the disk7 partition to fill the whole drive. This may take a little while.

Mount the 4 volumes.
Make sure you can see their content in Finder
Re-enable your backup apps.
Done!

 

[RetiredInFl]

Hey thanks .... just spent the last couple hours Googling and got more confused (or concerned about losing data). Just heading to bed and saw your message, Thank you !! I will go over it with fresh a mind in the morning. Thank you for taking the time to write that up!

Ed

 

[RetiredInFl]

@gilby101 Would I have been wiser to simply create folders rather than all the separate partitions (or whatever they are) ? Would seem easier to manage since there would be no size restrictions.

 

[gilby101]

Would I have been wiser to simply create folders rather than all the separate partitions (or whatever they are) ? Would seem easier to manage since there would be no size restrictions.

No. Multiple volumes is a good way to go and is what I do. My main backup disk has one container/partition with multiple volumes. Time Machine insists on a volume to itself. The only size restriction is the size of the container/partition.

 

[Bigwaff]

Unless you are experimenting with backup software, it somewhat defeats the purpose to backup multiple times (with multiple software) to the same external disk. You lose everything if your ext disk fails or is stolen. Doesn’t matter how many different ways you back up.

To @gilby101 point, the volumes share the space in the container. If any one of them uses up the container space, all of them are borked. Again, defeating the purpose of backing up multiple times in multiple ways to the same ext drive.

 

[RetiredInFl]

Unless you are experimenting with backup software, it somewhat defeats the purpose to backup multiple times (with multiple software) to the same external disk. You lose everything if your ext disk fails or is stolen. Doesn’t matter how many different ways you back up.

That's for sure. Well aware of that. Bought CCC thinking it was a better solution. I already owned Acronis from my PC. . Although, it is possible that one backup or the other can have issues just when you need it. Generally speaking you are 100% correct.

 

[Mike Boreham]

To @gilby101 point, the volumes share the space in the container. If any one of them uses up the container space, all of them are borked. Again, defeating the purpose of backing up multiple times in multiple ways to the same ext drive.

You can set max and min limits on space sharing volumes in the same container when you create them (not later) in Disk Utility.

 

[gilby101]

You can set max and min limits on space sharing volumes in the same container when you create them (not later) in Disk Utility.

Well aware of that. I didn't want to over-complicate my suggested steps to solve the OP's question.

In practice, I have never felt the need to use quotas on my multivolume external disks.

 

[HDFan]

simply want to combine/add/expand/extend the ~4GB "untitled" unused part of the partition into the Time Machine partition.

In the recommended 3-2-1 backup strategy backups are rotated to off-site storage. If you set up multiple partitions you would lose access to the data on the other partitions when you rotate the disk. It is simpler just to use a dedicated TM disk so you can swap disks as needed. In addition the larger the TM disk the longer the retained backup history.

Make sure no more than 1 of the backups is TM due to its unreliability.

 

[Mike Boreham]

Well aware of that. I didn't want to over-complicate my suggested steps to solve the OP's question.

In practice, I have never felt the need to use quotas on my multivolume external disks.

I was replying to @Bigwaff ’s comment on your post (that “if one filled up they are all borked”, which I don’t believe is the case anyway….it would just give disk full messages).