macOS โ€“ Changing Volume ‘Device / Media Name’ using Disk Utility

disk-formatdisk-utilityhfs+macos

I know a Mac volume can be renamed… obviously.

But if you look at the output of diskutil you will see that a volume also has a "device name" that corresponds to the name it was given when it was formatted:

diskutil info /dev/disk0s1 | grep 'Media Name'

Running it on your root volume you will probably get "Macintosh HD" (or else something like "Untitled 1" if that's how you left it when formatting in Disk Utility). It seems this doesn't change when you rename the volume after the fact.

Why do these different names for the same volume exist?

Does anything even refer to this hidden name?

Can it be changed?

Best Answer

The Device / Media Name is set when a partition is created on a disk. The only way you could rename the "startup partition" would be to startup from another drive. The initial name is set by Apple code by the way.

On Lion you will most likely find the following device names:

disk0: The make and model of your drive

  • You'll never change this.

disk0s1: "EFI system partition"

  • Extended firmware for your drive is stored here - you won't be changing this one either.

disk0s2: "Customer"

  • Named for you, Apple's "customer" this is where your files are stored.

disk0s3: "Recovery HD"

  • Apple stores a clean install of the OS here to make restoring your computer easier.

If you add your own custom partition to the mix you will find that Apple's tools (i.e. Disk Utility) will match the visible name and the device name.

All of that said there's no reason you should worry about changing this name. Nothing will reference it at the CLI or GUI level.