Renaming APFS boot volume

[Ben J.]

Hi.
I can't find any info on this:
I just restored my boot disk with Carbon Copy Cloner, and it all went well. Except I first formatted the SSD with Disk Utilities as a APFS volume and just left the name "No Name", thinking that the resore would also restore the volume name. Well, now I have a perfectly functioning restored boot disk, except it's called "No Name". And in Disk Utilities, a container with two volumes called "No Name" and "No Name - Data".

I guess it would be ok just to rename the disk in finder and leave it at that, but I would like to get your advice before I do anything. (Should I rename them both in Disk Utilities?)

 

[chscag]

No, all you need to do is rename the volume in Finder and that will take care of it. You could also use Disk Utility to do the rename but it's not necessary.

 

[Ben J.]

Great!
Thanx.

 

[mikzn]

I'll second that - I have just used the finder to change the name of the Volume - them important part is the "home folder" on the back up and that would not have changed

 

[Ben J.]

important part is the "home folder" on the back up and that would not have changed

Not shure what you mean. Could you elaborate?
Of course, I' not changing the name of user folder, so that's no problem.
I guess, what I was wondering was; what happens to the "No Name - Data" volume; and if renaming the "No Name" volume would breake the connection between the two, and, will it rename itself to "New Name - Data" automatically or will it stay named "No Name - Data".

 

[Taz Mangus]

When you rename the boot volume through Finder the Data volume is also renamed. In your case, you rename “No Name” to “Macintosh HD” the data volume will also be renamed to “Macintosh HD - Data”. The OS handles this. This why you only see one drive shown on your Desktop.

 

[Ben J.]

When you rename the boot volume through Finder the Data volume is also renamed. In your case, you rename “No Name” to “Macintosh HD” the data volume will also be renamed to “Macintosh HD - Data”. The OS handles this. This why you only see one drive shown on your Desktop.

Thanks a lot folks.
I'm reassured now, and I'll just use Finder to rename my boot disk.
I'll get back to you if everything breaks.

 

[mikzn]

Yes i was referring to the User folder - I am always careful about that when re installing or migrating to a new computer

But as chscag mentioned and also my experience is it is easy to change the "Volume" name you can just change it with the finder and if you want to confirm just change it with the finder and redo the back up - if it is set for incremental back up it it should do it very quickly and you will be go to go?

 

[Taz Mangus]

I just realized something. What happens if you do a TimeMachine backup and after the backup, you rename your boot drive. Would TimeMachine understand this? Does it use the UUID to understand what has been backed up?

 

[mikzn]

I just realized something. What happens if you do a TimeMachine backup and after the backup, you rename your boot drive. Would TimeMachine understand this? Does it use the UUID to understand what has been backed up?

yeah that is a good point - I was assuming we were talking about Carbon Copy Cloner

 

[Ben J.]

Hang on, one more thing:
When I now restore the original name (STARTDISK), do you think CCC is smart enough to just continue where it left off, and only copy files that is new or changed when it runs the old backup script? Maybe I should recreate the backup script after renaming the volume, just in case?
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I just realized something. What happens if you do a TimeMachine backup and after the backup, you rename your boot drive. Would TimeMachine understand this? Does it use the UUID to understand what has been backed up?

I actually use TM in addition to CCC, once a day each, but I'm pretty shure that TM would just act normal once the volume(s) has their original name back.

 

[mikzn]

I just tried it with CCC and got this message (see below) - I clicked ok and it is doing an incremental clone - will report back when it is finished - so far it seems ok

 

[Taz Mangus]

When you rename the boot volume through Finder the Data volume is also renamed. In your case, you rename “No Name” to “Macintosh HD” the data volume will also be renamed to “Macintosh HD - Data”. The OS handles this. This why you only see one drive shown on your Desktop.

I am retracting what I said as I was incorrect. I just tried renaming the boot drive through Finder and the Data volume is not automatically renamed but left as the "<old name> - Data". I verified this in Disk Utility.

 

[mikzn]

seemed to run just fine in CCC - after clicking OK - took 18 min

 

[Taz Mangus]

I just realized something. What happens if you do a TimeMachine backup and after the backup, you rename your boot drive. Would TimeMachine understand this? Does it use the UUID to understand what has been backed up?

Going to answer my own questions. TM does not use the UUID to identify what has changed for the drive. Sorry did not mean to off track the thread.

 

[Ben J.]

So I restored the original name of the boot disk in Finder, checked in Disk Utilities, and I do have one volume named "STARTDISK" and one named "No Name - Data"
Did a restart with option key pressed, and the disk showed up as "No Name" but it booted fine.
In Finder it's called "STARTDISK" but in both DU and CCC they are called "STARTDISK" and "No Name - Data".
So it seems the OS doesn't "take care of it"...

 

[Taz Mangus]

So I restored the original name of the boot disk in Finder, checked in Disk Utilities, and I do have one volume named "STARTDISK" and one named "No Name - Data"
Did a restart with option key pressed, and the disk showed up as "No Name" but it booted fine.
In Finder it's called "STARTDISK" but in both DU and CCC they are called "STARTDISK" and "No Name - Data".
So it seems the OS doesn't "take care of it"...

That is what I determined after I made my incorrect statement in post #13 above.

 

[Ben J.]

So, should I just rename the NoName - Data volume in DU?
And everything vould be OK with TM, foremost? (CCC task is easy to just recreate). I'm a little out of depth here.

(I use CCC for cloning without safetynet, and TM for incremental.)

 

[Taz Mangus]

So, should I just rename the NoName - Data volume in DU?
And everything vould be OK with TM, foremost? (CCC task is easy to just recreate). I'm a little out of depth here.

(I use CCC for cloning without safetynet, and TM for incremental.)

You could change it in DU. I would just to keep everything in sync.

 

[mikzn]

that is stange - I changed it in the finder - just clicked on the desktop icon and changed the name - then it shows up in disk utilities too and no duplicate - am on catalina 10.15.5 and apfs (non encrypted)

 

[Ben J.]

just clicked on the desktop icon and changed the name - then it shows up in disk utilities too and no duplicate - am on catalina 10.15.5 and apfs (non encrypted)

Me too, just clicked on the name in Finder and changed it. But Data volume name didn't change. even after restart. Cat 10.15.4.
Just changed the Data name in DU, restarting now. Will then try to run both TM and CCC.

 

[mikzn]

OK - yes the data volume - that is confusing

Ha ha - now I am worried - gonna put my drive names back to where they were and do another back up - lol

 

[Ben J.]

just clicked on the desktop icon and changed the name - then it shows up in disk utilities too and no duplicate - am on catalina 10.15.5 and apfs (non encrypted)

Me too, just clicked on the name in Finder and changed it. But Data volume name didn't change. even after restart. Cat 10.15.4.
Just changed the Data name in DU, restarting now. Will then try to run both TM and CCC.
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I restarted after changing both names back to original in DU.
Everything looks fine.
Going to run TM and CCC now.

 

[Ben J.]

TM seems to be OK with it.
It says 20GB needs to be backed up (out of 110) but doesn't seem unreasonable, after restoring w/CCC, well, I don't know.
I'll run CCC later, I just had to create a new task with the "new" volumes.
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Added: I have TM set to back up other disks also.

 

[Taz Mangus]

Something interesting. First, if I change the boot drive from Finder, only the OS volume name changes, the Data volume name does not change. However, if I change the OS volume name in DU, the Data volume also changes without me having to explicitly change the Data volume name.

It appears that if I change the boot drive name (regardless of whether the Data volume name changes), the name shown in the boot selection (holding down the option key when restarting) always shows the old name regardless. I even tried doing a PRAM and SMC reset and it made no difference. Looks like this is a bug because if I go to System Preferences->Startup Disk, the name change is reflected there correctly. Wonder if 10.15.5 acts this way.

Seems odd that Finder does not change the Data volume name and in DU it does. Maybe a bug in the Finder.