Mavericks - MacPro 5,1 - Install with moved Home Folder

[LuckyButtons]

Hi,
I have a MacPro 6-core (model MacPro5,1) and am currently running Snow Leopard. All is very well, but I feel I should upgrade the system to the latest (Mavericks), and have a few questions.

1. When I bought my desktop I switched out the boot drive to an SSD, and MOVED my Home Folder to another drive (one of 3 installed in other bays in the MacPro) so that the only things on the SSD is the System and all Applications, so that they run as fast as possible. SO, I need to know if I can install Mavericks while I have this set up going on. ?

2. It looks like a ton of users are having trouble with Mavericks slowing things down significantly. If this is happening, are there fixes? Or is it just better to stay away from it and continue running fairly old software (Snow Leopard)?

Thanks in advance for any help!

 

[crjackson2134]

I think Mavericks runs great. The reason it may look like "TONS" of people have issues, is because people tend to post when they have a problem. All the rest of us don't make threads / posts just to say "I have no problems with my OS".

You need to do a full backup of your system, do your reading homework regarding your SSD / Home folder configuration, and just do it.

If it doesn't perform to your liking, just do a full restore and it'll be back to normal.

 

[LuckyButtons]

I think Mavericks runs great. The reason it may look like "TONS" of people have issues, is because people tend to post when they have a problem. All the rest of us don't make threads / posts just to say "I have no problems with my OS".

You need to do a full backup of your system, do your reading homework regarding your SSD / Home folder configuration, and just do it.

If it doesn't perform to your liking, just do a full restore and it'll be back to normal.

Thanks for the reply. I hear you on people only posting when they have a problem.

But I have tried tirelessly to find an answer about how to install with my current SSD set up/Home Folder already having been moved and can't find a thing!

 

[kfscoll]

If you're not moving your Home folder, why can't you just install Mavericks "over top" of Snow Leopard?

On my 2011 iMac, I've had my Home folder on an internal HDD separate from my OS X/Applications-loaded internal SSD ever since the computer was new. I did an in-place upgrade from Mountain Lion to Mavericks without any issues. However, after Mavericks was installed, when I tried to move my Home folder from the internal HDD to an external TB RAID 0 array, I started having problems. I finally got it to work, but I had to leave my Home folder on my SSD and create symlinks to files on the external TB drive. It was tedious but there's a sub-folder in my ~/Applications Support folder that screws things up if I try to move it to the TB drive. Regardless, it's fine now as what's left of my Home folder on my SSD is only taking up ~4.5GB (the remainder of my Home folder that I've moved to the external drive is ~900GB).

More info on symlinks here, but in your case, I think you should be able to simply do an in-place upgrade to Mavericks.

 

[LuckyButtons]

If you're not moving your Home folder, why can't you just install Mavericks "over top" of Snow Leopard?

I am hoping it's that easy, but I seem to have read along the way that it would cause issue. Great to hear you did it successfully. So Mavericks doesn't try to create a Home Folder on the Boot drive (SSD in our cases)?

Is it basically just installing the System and leaving the Applications, and everything else, alone?

 

[kfscoll]

I am hoping it's that easy, but I seem to have read along the way that it would cause issue. Great to hear you did it successfully. So Mavericks doesn't try to create a Home Folder on the Boot drive (SSD in our cases)?

Is it basically just installing the System and leaving the Applications, and everything else, alone?

It didn't try to create a new user folder when I installed Mavericks. And yes, as far as I can tell, it just reinstalls the system and leaves everything else alone.

 

[LuckyButtons]

Well that worked!

So far, nothing seems slow. The only issue I am having now is that my MacPro is constantly "computing". Meaning, it is crackling and popping as if it is very hard at work. Been doing this for hours now. Problem is that it has never done this before, and even bigger problem, no programs are open other than Safari. I usually run Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Excel, Outlook and Safari at the minimum and my computer has always been very quiet. So I am not pleased about this.

Anyone know what this is about??

 

[wesk702]

Well that worked!

So far, nothing seems slow. The only issue I am having now is that my MacPro is constantly "computing". Meaning, it is crackling and popping as if it is very hard at work. Been doing this for hours now. Problem is that it has never done this before, and even bigger problem, no programs are open other than Safari. I usually run Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Excel, Outlook and Safari at the minimum and my computer has always been very quiet. So I am not pleased about this.

Anyone know what this is about??

Did you check if it's reindexing? If it is, depending how big your drives are, should stop in a few hours.

 

[hfg]

Possibly "Spotlight" doing the initial indexing of the new install? I think the little SpotLight icon changes to have a dot inside while it is working.

 

[LuckyButtons]

Possibly "Spotlight" doing the initial indexing of the new install? I think the little SpotLight icon changes to have a dot inside while it is working.

Ah! It is working right now. Didn't know that. Hopefully that is it. I will report back here once it is done. THANKS much for pointing that out!

 

[LuckyButtons]

That was it! Spotlight was working hard to index all my drives. Thanks wesk702 and hfg!

 

[thcousins]

Sorry to revive a dying post, but I'm hoping that the OP may be able to assist.

I too rund a MacPro5,1 and have recently upgraded to a SSD and moved my home folder to a separate drive (/Volumes/Home). I actually put a clean install of 10.9 on the SSD, the end result should be the same.

All is working well, except one small annoyance... (which is driving me insane)

When I try and show hidden files using the following commands:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowHiddenFiles TRUE
killall Finder

Nothing happens.

Well actually, it updates the file /Volumes/Home/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plist but hidden files are not shown.

The command:

defaults read com.apple.finder AppleShowHiddenFiles

Returns 'TRUE'

I created a new user, 'test' with home folder on the SSD (in usual location) and hiding/unhiding files works fine.

I have also created other users and moved their home folder to an alternate drive. So far I can report that a user with a relocated home folder cannot make hidden files visible.

So, question to the OP - or anyone else with a relocated home. Are you able to view hidden files?

Many thanks in advance.

Other info - may be related. I have run permissions verify and I get this warning - though most forums suggest it is nothing to worry about.

Warning: SUID file “System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/MacOS/ARDAgent” has been modified and will not be repaired.

 

[jalyst]

1. When I bought my desktop I switched out the boot drive to an SSD, and MOVED my Home Folder to another drive (one of 3 installed in other bays in the MacPro) so that the only things on the SSD is the System and all Applications, so that they run as fast as possible. SO, I need to know if I can install Mavericks while I have this set up going on. ?

From the research I've done so far, it's seems more advantageous to have only part of /Users/[username] on a separate HDD. Only files/folders in that directory which are rarely accessed or are typically large should go onto the HDD.* Most of the stuff in the hidden ~/Library folder is best left on the SSD, unless you have an ext. TB enclosure that houses a faster SSD or SSD RAID-0.

*they can be easily symlinked

 

[adam9c1]

How do you guys MOVE the home folder?

I'm in a similar situation.
I have upgraded from 3,1 to 4,1 with 120GB SSD and was running ML.
At times the sleep image would be 40GB and I would be all out of space.

I have manually moved the iPhoto and iTunes library (they were not that large to begin with), as well as manually download items from the web...

I decided to do a clean install of Mav as I have read people had issues with upgrades.

How do I go about Moving the home folder?
Thank you.
And Yes, I believe the hard drive crunching was spotlight indexing.
You can limit what volumes or folders are not indexed.

 

[jalyst]

Why not move only infrequently_used & large dirs/files in the home folder & symlink them, that should free-up plenty of space for the SSD. Moving the entire thing is cumbersome, & there's some dirs/files that are best dealt with by your SSD instead of the HDD. Also, it's possible to disable the sleep image file & free-up that 40GB, if your device is plugged-in most of the time, & you rarely suffer blackouts where you are, then you may as well. Since ML & the arrival of Versions/Resume/Other, + FS journaling, hibernatemode has become pretty-much redundant anyway.