APFS-formatted disk and mount point?

[zqbobs]

I formatted a Samsung T7 1TB portable drive as APFS with a name "NAME". It appears with that name on the desktop and in Finder window sidebars, BUT some (all?) apps see it as "NAME 1". Looking at the drive in Disk Utility, I see the drive is one volume, with mount point Volumes/NAME 1/ and the following structure:

What is going on? Should I just ignore the " 1" added to NAME in some apps? If I add another volume to the disk, would it be NAME 2, etc?

 

[chown33]

This is what happens when you already have a disk mounted whose name is "NAME", or when there's an existing folder in "/Volumes" named "NAME" that isn't something the disk auto-mounter created.

Two commands you can type in Terminal:

ls -l /Volumes
mount

The first lists everything in the "/Volumes" dir, and shows details: type, permissions, dates, etc. The second lists everything that's mounted, and where, along with the mounting options.

MacOS has done this essentially forever, though one might not have noticed unless one was using command-line tools. AFAIK, it's not limited to APFS volumes; macOS certainly does it on HFS+ disks, and the ExFAT disks I've tried. It probably does it on anything, including MFS floppies and CD-ROMs.

If there isn't an existing dir or mounted volume named "NAME", then please post the output of the 2 cmds given.

 

[gilby101]

Turning @chown33's post into actions you can take:

• Quit any apps which might be using the "NAME" volume.
• Dismount (using Finder or Disk Utility) all volumes with names like "NAME", "NAME 1", etc.
• Do ls -l /Volumes
• If there a folders (empty mount point) looking like /Volumes/NAME shown, delete it with sudo rm -d /Volumes/NAME.
• Remount (with disk Utility) the volume called "NAME".

It will be correctly mounted at /Volumes/NAME and it will be good at least until you reboot. So watch out for the problem next time you reboot the Mac.

I have a similar issue with my Samsung T7 and one of its volumes which is called T7. I believe this is due to an auto starting app which is creating the /Volumes/T7 folder so that the real T7 gets mounted at /Volumes/T7-1. I am trying to track this down, but I don't restart frequently (usually weeks between restarts) and have not got it fixed yet.

Your experience is making me wonder if there is something different about the Samsung T7. I don't think so, because my T5 has never had the problem.

 

[Basic75]

I believe this is due to an auto starting app which is creating the /Volumes/T7 folder

Is that some Samsung crapware from the SSD or another application?

 

[gilby101]

Is that some Samsung crapware from the SSD or another application?

Not Samsung crapware. A folder is being created at /Volumes/T7/Documents. The folder is one watched by Hazel. This folder creation forces the volume mount to use the mount point /Volumes/T7-1. Hazel's logs also suggest it is a Hazel issue with that watched folder. But this needs more diagnosis by me before jumping to conclusions. After I get to spending some time with reboots and logs, I will take this to the Hazel forums if that really is the problem. Seems odd (coincidences do happen) that the OP's issue with a T7 was just like mine.

 

[chown33]

Not Samsung crapware. A folder is being created at /Volumes/T7/Documents. The folder is one watched by Hazel. This folder creation forces the volume mount to use the mount point /Volumes/T7-1. Hazel's logs also suggest it is a Hazel issue with that watched folder.

One possibility is that the "watch folder" feature is creating the watched target folder if it doesn't exist. Without a folder to actually watch, the daemon doing the watching will fail. In short, an implied mkdir -p associated with the watching action. That's my guess.

 

[Boyd01]

Your experience is making me wonder if there is something different about the Samsung T7.

FWIW, I have five T7's and four T7 shields. Four are always connected to my Mini and used heavily. Never saw anything like this happen. I clean-formatted them all with APFS before using.

 

[gilby101]

One possibility is that the "watch folder" feature is creating the watched target folder if it doesn't exist

That seems to be what is happening. But I need to test more.

Never saw anything like this happen.

Neither have I until the last few months. I don't think it is the fault of the T7.