MacOS – What rules does OS X use for naming mounted volumes

macosmount

When I use VeraCrypt (a successor of TrueCrypt) to mount volumes on my filesystem, and I don't specify where it should mount them, the results are:

/Volumes/NO NAME
/Volumes/NO NAME 1
/Volumes/NO NAME 2

…and similar. I suspect these default paths don't come from VeraCrypt, but rather are set somewhere in OS X itself.

I ask because I'm trying to predict what other people's OS X installations will do, and I'm worried theirs are configured differently than mine. I'd like to be able to predict the mounted paths on other comps, and I'm getting reports of paths like:

/Volumes/Untitled

But I can't reproduce this.

Questions

  1. Can anyone verify this is standard OS X behavior?
  2. By what rules does OS X decide where volumes are mounted on the filesystem, especially what are the defaults and how are they set?
  3. Is this question related to the unix or BSD ancestry of OS X?

EDIT

I'm really trying to understand why and when different volume labels are used (the "NO NAME" or "Untitled" part).

Best Answer

  1. Yes, this is standard OSX behavior. If you have two identically named volumes, OSX will suffix 2-N with a digit in the filesystem (however, I don't believe they appear differently named on the desktop)

  2. OSX mounts everything under /Volumes/. You can see what the interface is by running the mount command. Physical volumes are mounted in /dev/diskXsY, where X and Y are interface ID's.

  3. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - you asked it in the Apple area.

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