Name of boot drive - important or trivial?

Question

Name of boot drive - important or trivial?

Is the name of your boot drive technically important, or is it merely a nostalgic convention for it to be named "Macintosh Hard Drive" and could it be named anything you want? Are there any consequences to changing the name of the boot drive after you've been using it a while?

Why I ask...

I've just gone through some hardware changes: on my old iMac, the internal "fusion" drive has been failing (bad sectors turning up more frequently with the passage of time). So I went through the process of replacing it, doing a clean OS installation and migrating all my files, apps, settings, etc to a new boot drive. That process is now complete, I've been working off the new boot drive for about 24 hours, apps working, accounts functional, all seems good.

The old boot drive (probably no longer to be used) is of course named "Macintosh HD" (which has always been, I think, the default name of the boot drive ever since mud was new). For my new boot drive, I bought an external SSD drive. The default name I gave that drive when I formatted it is something like "Samsung T7 SSD".

Now that I've done a clean install and migrated everything, the iMac boots off the new drive perfectly and all the apps I've tried so far seem to be working. But it's a little confusing to see the boot drive with an odd name. I can simply (first) change the name of the OLD boot drive to something like "OLD Drive Don't Use" and then simply rename the new "Samsung T7 SSD" to "Macintosh HD" (or maybe "Macintosh SSD HD").

If I go re-naming the old and new boot drives, should I expect any issues, or (as I suspect), are drive names just a convenience for us humans, and we can call them whatever we want, change their names willy-nilly, and the Mac won't care at all (because the drive "names" are just labels for us humans, and under the hood, everything keeps track of physical drives using other methods that are largely hidden from us mere users/owners/payers)?

Thanks.

Earlier Mac models

Posted on Oct 22, 2024 11:34 AM

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Answer 1

Niel

Level 10

732,581 points

Oct 22, 2024 11:43 AM in response to longtimemacuser666

It's negligible(internally, the computer sees the startup volume as /), except for people who have manually created scripts with a hardcoded path; if you don't know what they are, you don't need to be concerned about this.

(256137)

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Answer 2

HWTech

Level 9

60,758 points

Oct 22, 2024 5:16 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

Renaming the APFS boot volume is a bit tricky since you have a system volume and a "Data" volume which macOS links together behind the scenes so only "Macintosh HD" is seen by the user. Unfortunately Apple still has not been able to figure out how to allow the user to properly rename these to keep the names "aligned".

The easiest method is to use Disk Utility to rename the "Volume Group". If all the APFS volumes have a base name which matches the Volume Group name, then more than likely changing the Volume Group name will cause the other ones to automatically change as well. However, if one of the other APFS volumes has a new name, then changing the Volume Group name may or may not cause the others to line up. If that does not cause the other volumes in the Volume Group to automatically align their names, then you may need to manually change their base name to match one another. Unfortunately each version of macOS since Catalina names the System and "Data" volumes differently so I cannot just give you simple instructions.

Before you rename the boot volume, make sure expand the "Volume Group" to show the System volume, Update volume, and the Data volume. Using the Apple "Macintosh HD" default as a guide, which ever volumes/items you see showing "Macintosh HD" you will want them all to have the same updated base name. It is not easy to rename an APFS boot volume or figure out how to do so. It is preferred to give the volume the correct name when you first use Disk Utility to erase the APFS volume so that macOS takes care of it when installing macOS.

Renaming the "Macintosh HD" name shown in the Finder or on the Desktop will usually only rename a portion of the Volume Group....again it varies by version of macOS (at one time I think it worked correctly with Big Sur, but I know Catalina and some later versions of macOS did not rename all the APFS volumes within the Volume Group). It is very frustrating.

I know Catalina, Big Sur, and Ventura are all completely different in how macOS displays these APFS volumes (I don't have a Monterey, Sonoma, or Sequoia system at the moment to compare).

Will renaming the volume(s) cause a problem? With most software it probably won't be an issue. However, video editing apps are more likely to have a problem since they seem to hardwire the path into their projects.

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Answer 3

Oct 22, 2024 12:06 PM in response to longtimemacuser666

"to rename mine "We don't need any more fart apps" or whatever suits me."

You can't use that, that name is reserved by the system, like "Bthole Astronomer"

8^)

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Answer 4

Oct 23, 2024 5:56 AM in response to OldGoat67

"then said Astronomer did or said something that upset/displeased Apple greatly"

What he did was refuse permission to use his name.

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Answer 5

Oct 22, 2024 11:57 AM in response to Niel

Yes, I do know what scripts and hardcoded paths are. AFAIK I have none that I've created manually, I probably have apps that come with some of their own, but presumably those are not written to include specific drive names. So I think I am in the clear to rename mine "We don't need any more fart apps" or whatever suits me.

Thank you for the clarification.

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Answer 6

OldGoat67

Level 3

590 points

Oct 22, 2024 5:35 PM in response to HWTech

Yes… you ‘re all correct… and for historical reference ( the astronomer part) Apple was going to name one of its OS’s/products for a famous Astronomer, using his last name… then said Astronomer did or said something that upset/displeased Apple greatly… so they announced they were going to name it after him, but not his last name, just “Butth**d Astronomer”

john B

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