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Clean install Big Sur with Macintosh HD-data

I’m trying to do a clean install of Big Sur from a USB boot (I had already installed it last week but had problems with FCPX). I have backed up my data via Timemachine. And I am in recovery mode. However, the instructions say “erase the hard drive” but I see two hard drives (a Macintosh HD and a Macintosh HD-data). The instructions do not account for this. When I researched Catalina installs it says to “Delete” the HD-data drive and “erase” the HD drive. I’m a bit insecure that I’m about to screw it up. Anybody know what the best practice is? Basically I want to have a clean I stall of Big Sur (hoping it helps my FCPX issues) but need to ensure that I will be able to bring back my core files from my time machine backup (and iCloud).

MacBook Pro 16″, macOS 11.0

Posted on Nov 20, 2020 5:38 PM

Best reply

Barney-15E

Level 10

112,668 points

Posted on Nov 20, 2020 6:41 PM

…but I see two hard drives (a Macintosh HD and a Macintosh HD-data).

No, you don't see two hard drives, you see two APFS Volumes. By default, Disk Utility hides the actual drive.

If you select Show All Devices from the View popup menu, you will see a drive, with several volumes in a Container.

Erase the Drive. Use APFS format and GUID partition map. Name it whatever you want.

You could also remove all of the Volumes, then add a new Volume to install onto. Use whatever name you want.

APFS divides a drive into Containers. Containers are virtually divided into Volumes. Volumes all share the same storage space of the Container.

Catalina and Big Sur split the startup drive into two Volumes, an OS volume and a Data volume. When you install, it creates a new volume for the data and names it the same as the OS volume, but adds "- Data."

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Clean install Big Sur with Macintosh HD-data

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