finder showing macintosh hd, macintosh hd - data and Macintosh hd-data 2

Catalina and Big Sur split up the drive into an OS volume and a Data volume. You should only see the OS volume, Macintosh HD. The fact that you see not one but two data drives indicates you have improperly reinstalled an OS twice. Each of the - Data volumes you see are orphans left behind during a reinstall.

You should make sure you have all of your files in your home folder and nothing is missing. If you think there is some files missing, look in each of those data drives for the missing files and move them into your home folder. Nothing should be missing, though.

Once you know it is ok to remove the orphans, open Disk Utility and select each of the Data volumes. The current one will show a home icon and mount point of /System/Volumes/Data.

The orphans will be mounted to /Volumes.

You can remove each orphan by selecting it and clicking the Remove Volume button (–).

carey167 wrote:

the Macintosh HD Data is what your calling the "home" folder? will this help it operate faster?

Thanks

No. Macintosh HD - Data is the Data Volume which holds all of the home folders, any third-party and Non-OS Apple applications, Application configuration data, etc.

Your Home folder is the one named for your user account name inside of /Users.

You will find a home folder in each of the - Data volumes you see, and your current home folder can be found by Go > Home in the Finder.

carey167 wrote:

To help me understand - the Data Volume where all these home folders, 3rd party apps....etc. should be in Macintosh HD>users>user account name.

No. All of those things are inside the Data volume. It is mounted to /System/Volumes/Data, but Finder makes it appear like it is in Macintosh HD.

And those in Macintosh HD - Data_2 >users>account name should be moved somehow to Macintosh HD>users>user account name. and then run the Disk Utility noted above?

Yes. However, it would not be common for you to find any files in those that were not copied over to your home folder.

I already explained what you need to do and it is quite simple.

You seem confused as to where everything is stored, but you don’t really need to know.

I don’t expect that you will find anything missing from your home folder, but it doesn’t hurt to compare. Each of the data drives have a /Users folder with a sub folder named for your user.

Use Go > Home to open your actual home folder.

Open another Finder window and navigate to one of the folders in /Users. Compare the files between the two windows in each sub folder. If you find things in the - Data folders that are not in the folders in your home, copy them over.

If you have Desktop & Documents in iCloud Drive enabled, then there will not be those folders in your Home, but in iCloud Drive. But, you likely don’t need to check them.