You can make a difference in the Apple Support Community!

When you sign up with your Apple Account, you can provide valuable feedback to other community members by upvoting helpful replies and User Tips.

Looks like no one’s replied in a while. To start the conversation again, simply ask a new question.

Other Volumes, After Formatting SSD

I "erased" my internal HD via Disk Utility, with the intent on a "clean" install of macOS High Sierra. In the attached picture it shows, that after erasing the drive, that my SSD is shared by 4 volumes totalling 2.28 GB.

What is stored in the "Other Volumes" and should I be expecting to see these extra volumes after erasing my SSD?

Thanks for any info,

User uploaded file

MacBook Air, macOS High Sierra (10.13), i5 4 GB Ram (early 2015)

Posted on Oct 9, 2017 5:17 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Oct 9, 2017 10:59 PM

That looks normal. It the OS installs three other hidden partitions "Preboot", "Recovery" and "VM".


You can use the terminal command "diskutil list" to see the partitions, but I'd strongly recommend against fiddling with them.


VM = Virtual Memory

Recovery = The macOS Recovery envirionment

Preboot = Required to be able to boot into an Encrypted startup volume


And through APFS magic, they share free space on the physical disk (well technically within the same APFS container [which is not shown on your screenshot but will be on the output of the diskutil command, and which fills your physical disk])

1 reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Oct 9, 2017 10:59 PM in response to bechard

That looks normal. It the OS installs three other hidden partitions "Preboot", "Recovery" and "VM".


You can use the terminal command "diskutil list" to see the partitions, but I'd strongly recommend against fiddling with them.


VM = Virtual Memory

Recovery = The macOS Recovery envirionment

Preboot = Required to be able to boot into an Encrypted startup volume


And through APFS magic, they share free space on the physical disk (well technically within the same APFS container [which is not shown on your screenshot but will be on the output of the diskutil command, and which fills your physical disk])

Other Volumes, After Formatting SSD

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.