Optimizing storage on Macbook Pro SSD with containers in MacOS Catalina

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Level 1

4 points

Optimizing storage on Macbook Pro SSD with containers in MacOS Catalina

I have a mid-2014 Macbook Pro 13" that has a 250GB SSD inside. Several years ago I created a few partitions when I was experimenting with installing Linux on the machine. That was several OS versions ago and those partitions became abandoned.

'diskutil apfs list' output

So I now have 215GB of usable space, and 33GB of free space. How can I go about optimally utilizing this additional space? Can I create an APFS volume on the free space and then somehow add it to the container for the main system and data? I'm familiar with Linux LVM but not with the Mac equivalents.

If I delete the Free Space in Disk Utility, then it expands the Recovery HD to fill that space, rather than the Macintosh HD, which is where I would want it.

I've attached the partition view from Disk Utility as well as the output of 'diskutil list' and 'diskutil apfs list'.

Thanks in advance,

Michael

'diskutil list' output

MacBook Pro Retina

Posted on May 25, 2020 2:37 PM

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Answer 1

mphelpsmd Author

Level 1

4 points

May 29, 2020 2:38 PM in response to mphelpsmd

As a follow-up, I copied the "Recovery HD" partition that was between the free space and my "Macintosh HD" container using SuperDuper to the other 1GB partition on the "far end" of the free space. Then I deleted the (old) "Recovery HD" partition and was subsequently able to reclaim the free space.

The system boots successfully into Macintosh HD although I haven't tried booting into the recovery partition yet. That would be the final test that this succeeded.

So it looks like problem solved!

Mike

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Answer 2

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,690 points

May 25, 2020 3:38 PM in response to mphelpsmd

You need to delete the two * partitions, then you can merge them into Macintosh HD.

You can only "merge" into free space immediately after the partition.

So (if after deleting them), you can merge the * between "Free space" and Macintosh HD, then you can Merge in "Free Space", then you can merge the remaining * partition.

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Answer 3

MartinR

Level 7

24,810 points

May 29, 2020 3:13 PM in response to mphelpsmd

FYI, Catalina has its own hidden recovery volume inside the Catalina container. And although I can't be certain about it, your former Recovery Partition (now in your "far end" partition) may be from a prior version of macOS and may not be usable for Catalina recovery.

But, as long as you have an internet connection you can always boot into Internet Recovery (in the event your SSD-based recovery partition doesn't work.)

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Answer 4

mphelpsmd Author

Level 1

4 points

May 25, 2020 7:21 PM in response to Barney-15E

Barney-15E, thanks for the response.

The * partition between Macintosh HD and Free Space is the Recovery HD partition. If I delete that, is there a safe way of reconstructing it? (Or, can I clone it to the other 1 GB partition to make contiguous space.)

Michael

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Answer 5

Barney-15E

Level 10

122,690 points

May 25, 2020 7:37 PM in response to mphelpsmd

I don't know what to do with that.

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Optimizing storage on Macbook Pro SSD with containers in MacOS Catalina

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