naming mapped drives on the Mac

pbailey · Aug 1, 2011

Hi,
I'm a new Mac user here at work. I've been a PC guy since Window 2.x, a long time. One thing I've always liked about Windows is that network drives can be named with letters. Drive G:, drive H:, drive Z:, etc. So, I know that Mac can easily network, too. I'd like to know if it's possible to name Mac network connections to my liking. Can I name a distant server/drive drive H:, for example?
Thanks.

louishen · Aug 1, 2011

Drive letters are a hangover from Windows's DOS underpinnings from the 80s

OSX is a Unix based system and has no need for drive letters. Unix does give drives an identifier like disk2s1 but not drive letters.

Drive letters are just an old disk organisation scheme from the dawn of computing that you are probably just have to abandon

pbailey · Aug 1, 2011

louishen said:
Drive letters are a hangover from Windows's DOS underpinnings from the 80s

OSX is a Unix based system and has no need for drive letters. Unix does give drives an identifier like disk2s1 but not drive letters.

Drive letters are just an old disk organisation scheme from the dawn of computing that you are probably just have to abandon

I understand. Thanks for your response. But, why would it be considered easier to go to a distant drive with "disk2s1" instead of just "G:," or any letter? I'm a fervent command shell user in Windows. Yes, you could call it DOS, but, it isn't. And, it's very easy to change drives by just typing in a letter. So, on a Mac, in the terminal window, how would I change over to another drive if it were called "disk2s1?"

Dysfunction · Aug 1, 2011

Let's take a look at this external mounted drive on my machine.

/dev/disk1s1 on /Volumes/SD1 (msdos, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)

Ok, so in this case, to change directory to it in Terminal I would..

cd /Volumes/SD1

This is referred to as a mount point, and is represented in your file system as a directory under /Volumes. The /dev/disk1s1 is a device. If you try to cd to it, you can't.

mikeMBP:~ mike$ cd /dev/disk1s1
-bash: cd: /dev/disk1s1: Not a directory

pbailey · Aug 1, 2011

Dysfunction said:
Let's take a look at this external mounted drive on my machine.

/dev/disk1s1 on /Volumes/SD1 (msdos, local, nodev, nosuid, noowners)

Ok, so in this case, to change directory to it in Terminal I would..

cd /Volumes/SD1

This is referred to as a mount point, and is represented in your file system as a directory under /Volumes. The /dev/disk1s1 is a device. If you try to cd to it, you can't.

mikeMBP:~ mike$ cd /dev/disk1s1
-bash: cd: /dev/disk1s1: Not a directory

Hmm. Interesting. So, why do you say "/dev/disk1s1 on /Volumes/SD1?" If /dev/disk1s1 is the device, then, how is that device ON /Volumes/DS1?

Dysfunction · Aug 1, 2011

it's mounted to /Volumes/SD1, in the same way that a windows drive is 'mounted' to D:

The difference?

In /dev it's a block FILE.
mikeMBP:~ mike$ ls -l /dev/disk*
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 0 Jul 30 19:21 /dev/disk0
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 1 Jul 30 19:21 /dev/disk0s1
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 2 Jul 30 19:21 /dev/disk0s2
brw-r----- 1 mike operator 14, 3 Aug 1 07:53 /dev/disk1
brw-r----- 1 mike operator 14, 4 Aug 1 07:53 /dev/disk1s1

In /Volumes, it's a directory.

total 104
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Jul 30 19:21 Macintosh HD -> /
drwxrwxrwx 1 mike staff 16384 Aug 1 07:53 SD1
drwx------ 1 mike staff 16384 May 2 19:11 STORAGE1
drwx------ 4 mike staff 264 Jul 25 04:00 Time Machine
drwxrwxrwx 1 mike staff 16384 Jul 29 12:21 export

Wiki's got a pretty decent description of how device files work...

Device file - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Btw, you'll notice that /Volumes/Macintosh HD is a link to /

pbailey · Aug 1, 2011

Dysfunction said:
it's mounted to /Volumes/SD1, in the same way that a windows drive is 'mounted' to D:

The difference?

In /dev it's a block FILE.
mikeMBP:~ mike$ ls -l /dev/disk*
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 0 Jul 30 19:21 /dev/disk0
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 1 Jul 30 19:21 /dev/disk0s1
brw-r----- 1 root operator 14, 2 Jul 30 19:21 /dev/disk0s2
brw-r----- 1 mike operator 14, 3 Aug 1 07:53 /dev/disk1
brw-r----- 1 mike operator 14, 4 Aug 1 07:53 /dev/disk1s1

In /Volumes, it's a directory.

total 104
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Jul 30 19:21 Macintosh HD -> /
drwxrwxrwx 1 mike staff 16384 Aug 1 07:53 SD1
drwx------ 1 mike staff 16384 May 2 19:11 STORAGE1
drwx------ 4 mike staff 264 Jul 25 04:00 Time Machine
drwxrwxrwx 1 mike staff 16384 Jul 29 12:21 export

Wiki's got a pretty decent description of how device files work...

Device file - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Btw, you'll notice that /Volumes/Macintosh HD is a link to /

OK. Thanks a lot.