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Luba

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 22, 2009
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when I go to Disk Utility -> side bar -> under APPLE SSD -> Container disk2?? shouldn't be Container disk1?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208496 has "Container disk1", how did I get "Container disk2", is this a minor bug with my Catalina? How do I fix this? Thanks in advance.
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Also, in the white-colored box in the pic that I got from support.apple.com "Device: disk0", but for me I think it's "Device: disk1" or "Device: disk2". Is this a problem?
 

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Last edited:
The SSD is disk0, which means that the first container would usually be assigned disk1.
If the SSD is assigned disk1, then the first container would be assigned disk2.
The numbering doesn't mean much to most users, as the system assigns those numbers without any input from the user.

You don't have any control over what the system (and the Unix-y disk tools) uses to number the various disks, containers and partitions.
Well, maybe you can change the disk numbers through some arcane terminal command, but not something that would be worth doing.
On your Mac, likely the disk0 was already used, maybe on the initial install.

Not something that you need to "fix", nor is it a "thing" that will affect anything. It's just internal numbering that your system uses to keep track of the various active drives and partitions.
 
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How the Containers are named isn’t really that important. I wouldn’t worry too much about that. When I initially was doing my clean install of MacOS I found that Disk Utility was ended up naming the Container Disk5. After the install had completed and I went back in Disk Utility, I found that the Container has been renamed to Disk1 and another had been named Disk2.
 
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My theory - and I am probably wrong - is that . . .

Macintosh HD is the "Recovery Disk" - Container Disk / Volume

Macintosh HD - Data = your computer drive and all data stored in that container / volume
 
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My theory - and I am probably wrong - is that . . .

Macintosh HD is the "Recovery Disk" - Container Disk / Volume

Macintosh HD - Data = your computer drive and all data stored in that container / volume
I won't say you are wrong, but your theory is -- incorrect.
Macintosh HD is the volume used for the system files.
Macintosh HD - Data is the volume used for your apps and files.
The Recovery system is separate from those, one of the other volumes in that container.
The Recovery, VM, and Preboot volumes are hidden from the Finder, but you can see those by running the "diskutil list" command in the terminal
 
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