Unwritable SSD
Can someone please explain how come I see two names on my MacBook storage but can use only one of them? one is writeable the other one is not. thanks.
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The macOS write-protected system environment uses those two partition names. “Macintosh HD” is macOS and supporting files, while “Macintosh HD - Data” is where your data resides.
The former is write-protected. The latter is writable.
Apple merges those when presenting storage volumes.
This is one part of the macOS malware protections.
Apple doesn’t particularly document this design, beyond this and a few other articles:
… About the read-only system volume in macOS Catalina or later - Apple Support (BH)
I would strongly recommend having complete and current backups, as partitioning-related errors can be catastrophic to data, and some errors can involve corruptions or data loss across all partitions.