I moved the home folder from SSD to HDD, now what?

[timgman]

Hello-

So I finally bit the bullet, and I purchased a shiny new iMac. Screen is great and it's super fast.

After Migrating from my old computer I followed the advice of putting the Home folder on the 2T HDD where I want all my data and working files to live while the OS and Apps stay on the SSD.

Now I still have the all the data on the SSD, is it okay to delete the entire folder? Or should I just go into each folder and delete only the contents? I was just worried that if I deleted the original home folder, i might have problem logging in on restart.

I appreciate any advice!

 

[mbsaeger]

Not sure I understand what you're asking. You want to work from a Home folder located on an external drive?


Best,
Matthew
admin@mbsaeger.com

 

[HobeSoundDarryl]

What I believe you are saying is that you have an iMac with an SSD and a 2TB internal (just like me). You've moved your home folder to the 2TB and are wondering what to do with a copy on the SSD. I read that to mean that you only copied your home folder to the 2TB, not actually moved it there. If so, here's what I suggest:

Delete the copy on the 2TB drive

Backup the working system (all on that SSD) you have with something like Super Duper or Carbon Copy Cloner or at least Time Machine.

Once you have a solid backup, actually move the home folder to the 2TB drive (not copy it) in Finder. If you want to set it up like mine, you then go into System Preferences, Accounts. Right click on your account to display "advanced options..." (you may have to unlock Accounts to do this). Down on the Advanced Options screen, click the "choose" button to show your system where you now have your home directory located. Once you've shown it the new location at "Volumes/Mac2TB/usernamehome" (subbing in whatever you named your 2TB drive and whatever your home directory is called), click OK. Reboot.

That has worked very well for me for months.

I experimented with the other method of using aliases for everything in my home folder, but I never could get that to completely work. Theoretically, one should be able to leave the home folder on the SSD and have it house a bunch of aliases pointing to home folder content wherever one wants to store that content (even separate drives if desired), but I couldn't seem to make all of the items in home work that way.

 

[Muttley1900]

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@HobeSoundDarryl - Thanks for that as I'm just doing the same (moving from pc to my first Mac) and wanted to only put my apps on the ssd and data on the 2TB hard drive.

My only issue was that I couldn't find an option to "move" (very probably my inexperience on a mac) the home folder to the 2TB drive, I ended up copying it and then deleting the original.

J.

 

[Xenc]

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Wait, huh? It's fine to leave your Home directory on the SSD. Just manually place larger files, such as movies, on the HDD. That way the HDD won't be spinning 24/7 and OSX will primarily work with the much faster SSD.