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.

Mac Mini M1 cant Erase Partiton on external SSD Drive

Hi.


I have an external SSD drive to store samples for Logic-X.


I erased it and out of the blue I had two partitions which have not been there before.

In other words he kept the old name and made a second partiotn with this drive name.


In my expereince erasing a drive menas I go back to one partiton and everything is erased.

I thought I can erase the second partition with the disk_utl but NO I cant erase this partition.


Is this a bug in the disk_utl?

I just want to have one partiton for the whole SSD, which is not possible with disk_utl on the mac M1


Cheers

A.




Posted on Nov 28, 2021 12:23 PM

Reply
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Posted on Nov 28, 2021 12:37 PM

Hello, logicpro7composer.


Sorry that you're having this trouble.


The new Apple Silicon Macs use APFS drive formatting for SSDs.

Use Disk Utility to Partition the drive, don't simply erase it. Partitioning will reformat it. Use the APFS format with GUID partition scheme. Once you have repartitioned the SSD, you can use Disk Utility to add and delete APFS volumes to the drive.


Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on your Mac - Apple Support


EDIT - It IS possible to have a single partition on an APFS formatted drive. Format the drive, then ADD a single APFS volume to the Container that has been created.

2 replies
Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Nov 28, 2021 12:37 PM in response to logicpro7composer

Hello, logicpro7composer.


Sorry that you're having this trouble.


The new Apple Silicon Macs use APFS drive formatting for SSDs.

Use Disk Utility to Partition the drive, don't simply erase it. Partitioning will reformat it. Use the APFS format with GUID partition scheme. Once you have repartitioned the SSD, you can use Disk Utility to add and delete APFS volumes to the drive.


Erase and reformat a storage device in Disk Utility on your Mac - Apple Support


EDIT - It IS possible to have a single partition on an APFS formatted drive. Format the drive, then ADD a single APFS volume to the Container that has been created.

Mac Mini M1 cant Erase Partiton on external SSD Drive

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