Disk Utility: Which volume, and how often?

rob.phil wrote:

I have a new Mac Studio (M1 Max), running Monterey 12.3.1

I'm curious to know how often it's recommended I run Disk Utility just to keep things running smoothly.

Also, which volumes do I select and in which order?

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/267fa63f-ffdb-4df6-bcad-e92eb6e78da9

Thanks in advance.

There is no need run Disk Utility unless you have a compelling reason..

The snapshot is locked SSV (signed system volume.)

What is a signed system volume? - Apple Support

Boot into Internet Recovery (Option Command R) and from the dropdown menu: Utilities>  Disk Utility> run the First Aid on your Macintosh HD (and the "Macintosh HD-Data" volume as well if Catalina/Big Sur/Monterey) If errors are found and repaired, run again until no errors reported.

Disk Utility>View>Show All Devices The best sequence is —

• Volume level

• Container level

• Parent drive

Recovery

How to reinstall macOS - Apple Support

DiskUtility first aid

Repair a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

There is no need to use disk utility unless you are formatting an external drive or doing something else that may require formatting.

Here is more info:

How to repair a Mac disk with Disk Utility - Apple Support

Intro to Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

Apple recommends to run First Aid on each volume and container on the storage device in turn, then run it on the storage device itself.

Repair a storage device in Disk Utility on Mac - Apple Support

I have a habit to reset SMC, PRAM, safe-boot and run First Aid after major macOS updates.

Only once in 30 years a long time ago I have had major-sounding errors reported in First Aid. I then reformatted the drive and restored from a backup (just in case). Then there have been a few failing HDDs (I/O errors and pizza of death when reading/writing) but AFAIR First Aid did not report errors then.

HWTech wrote:

leroydouglas wrote:

rob.phil wrote:

Also, which volumes do I select and in which order?

Disk Utility>View>Show All Devices The best sequence is —

• Volume level

• Container level

• Parent drive

FYI, First Aid has a bug in recent versions where it will error out if you try to run a scan on the Container after running a scan on one of the APFS volumes. I have had to reboot the Mac in order to run First Aid on the Container. It is possible to then run the scan on each APFS after that, but it is not necessary since running First Aid on the Container will run the scan on each APFS volume within that Container automatically. At least this is the case with Containers & APFS volumes.

Thx HWTech—

This was not my experience in just tested in macOS 12.3.1 , but who is to know if we are truly comparing oranges to oranges here— I can not answer that question.

My best recommendation, is send it up the chain for review, the documentation may need a change.

Would not be the first time...😉

ref:

How to repair a Mac disk with Disk Utility - Apple Support

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210898#firstaid

esp sect—"Repair volumes, then containers, then disks"

When scanning with First Aid, run First Aid on the hidden Container. This will automatically scan all APFS volumes within that Container. If you scan one of the individual APFS volumes, then try to scan the Container, many times you may end up with an error of being unable to scan the Container. I forget the error that is given, but it has happened several times to me on several different Macs so it is some sort of bug in First Aid.

You can scan the physical drive at any time, but the scan of the physical drive will only check the integrity of the partition table.

Even if First Aid says everything is "Ok" click "Show Details" and scroll back through the report to see if any unfixed errors are listed. If there are any unfixed errors listed, then you will need to run First Aid from Internet Recovery Mode, otherwise you will need to erase the drive (Intel, or just the Container if using an M1 Mac) and restore from a backup. First Aid will not tell the truth about the scan results so manually reviewing the report is necessary. This is from personal experience.

leroydouglas wrote:

rob.phil wrote:

Also, which volumes do I select and in which order?

Disk Utility>View>Show All Devices The best sequence is —

• Volume level

• Container level

• Parent drive

FYI, First Aid has a bug in recent versions where it will error out if you try to run a scan on the Container after running a scan on one of the APFS volumes. I have had to reboot the Mac in order to run First Aid on the Container. It is possible to then run the scan on each APFS after that, but it is not necessary since running First Aid on the Container will run the scan on each APFS volume within that Container automatically. At least this is the case with Containers & APFS volumes.

> First Aid has a bug in recent versions where it will error out if you try to run a scan on the Container after running a scan on one of the APFS volumes

That does not happen in my macOS 12.3.1 setup.

p.s. a few months ago in Big Sur 11.6.2 Option-R Recovery mode I got the following alerts when I opened the details pane:

"warning: container has been mounted by APFS version 1933.61.1, which is newer than 1677.141.2"

"warning: disabling overallocation repairs by default; use -o to override"

"warning: orphan omap mappings found for oid range 682964 --> 682976

"warning: Unable to read apfs keylocker ranges: No such file or directory"

...but when I then booted into Internet Recovery mode (AFAIK the Monterey version) there were no such alerts so I ignored those warnings.

After that I have done a clean Monterey install after erasing the whole device and no warnings anymore.

I say period use of Disk Utility is not required unless there is a problem that might be caused by a disk problem.