4 ms·

The thing it doesn't look like we are actually erasing the device but a volume group inside it. I say that because there seems to be a protected partition that

• marcan_42 6y ago
  You are erasing the container (as in one APFS container of multiple volumes) that contains the OS and data and everything else that is what, on a PC, you would consider "the whole drive" for fresh-install purposes. On an M1, that is only one GPT partition, but that doesn't really matter. The point is that that (plus perhaps clearing xART data) will fix pretty much any "normal" issues you have in the machine, equivalent to a fresh reinstall with full data wipe. The filesystem data structures are independent at the volume group level, so this will also fix any filesystem issues you might have (it would be very rare to have FS problems in the other two system APFS volume groups, as they are very rarely written to, and even more rarely have metadata/complex changes). Compare: this is like wiping boot, system, data, and vendor on an Android phone. You wipe the whole OS and user data. You do not wipe the bootloader and other partitions (because if you did, you'd brick the phone). This is as much of a "factory reset" as almost anyone will ever need. If you really want to wipe the whole drive, you need Apple Configurator 2 and another Mac to re-install, as the machine is then unable to boot in anything except DFU mode if you wipe the system containers. Unlike Android phones though, this is supported by Apple, so you can't in fact brick these Macs like that - just be aware that this option does (currently) require another Mac to do the re-install.