The hidden "name - Data" disk, which is part of APFS, is no longer hidden. It's always visible on the desktop. Not a major issue but certainly an annoyance. How can I get rid of it? I have already done a clean erase - reinstall. This is on a MB Pro 13-inch, 2020, Four Thunderbolt 3 ports running Big Sur 11.2.3
MacBook Pro 13″, 11.2
It is possible this "name - Data" volume is one left over from an older installation of macOS Catalina or Big Sur and is not your current "Data" volume. Apple has unfortunately decided to hide the physical drive from view within Disk Utility since macOS 10.13 so to perform a clean install you must first click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utilty. Only after you erase the whole physical drive will you get the proper layout of volumes on the drive. macOS has added several new volumes to macOS 10.15+ drives (Big Sur even adds an additional "Update" or "com.apple.update" volume):
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650
You can attempt to delete the "name - Data" volume using Disk Utility.
https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/add-erase-or-delete-apfs-volumes-dskua9e6a110/mac
Just make sure to have a good backup before attempting any of these suggestions since each of these suggestions either will or has the potential of causing data loss on the drive.
It is possible this "name - Data" volume is one left over from an older installation of macOS Catalina or Big Sur and is not your current "Data" volume. Apple has unfortunately decided to hide the physical drive from view within Disk Utility since macOS 10.13 so to perform a clean install you must first click "View" within Disk Utility and select "Show All Devices" so that the physical drive appears on the left pane of Disk Utilty. Only after you erase the whole physical drive will you get the proper layout of volumes on the drive. macOS has added several new volumes to macOS 10.15+ drives (Big Sur even adds an additional "Update" or "com.apple.update" volume):
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210650
You can attempt to delete the "name - Data" volume using Disk Utility.
https://support.apple.com/guide/disk-utility/add-erase-or-delete-apfs-volumes-dskua9e6a110/mac
Just make sure to have a good backup before attempting any of these suggestions since each of these suggestions either will or has the potential of causing data loss on the drive.
Open Disk Utility and look for two - Data volumes.
If there are two, select each and look at the Mount Point in the info pane.
If it says /Volumes, it is an orphan left over from a reinstall that was not done properly.
If there is only one, I don't know why it is showing. It is not hidden or anything like that. It should be mounted to /System/Volumes/Data, so you should not see it in Finder unless you go to that path, but you won't see "Macintosh HD - Data."
Yes! That seems to have done the trick, even after a couple of restarts to check. I wouldn't have had the confidence to go and delete a disk that seemed to be related to the OS. (I had duplicate backups before deleting anything, or course).
Thank you.
Switch to the Finder:
Press Command+Shift+Dot.
That shows/hides hidden files, but has no effect on the " -data" disk, which stubbornly remains. Thanks for the suggestion though. Great key combo.
APFS data disk is visible in the Finder
