Moving Data files off your SSD can be a pain

[escozul]

The title says it all! I've just added a brand new Agility 4 SSD on my mac and it feels like a new computer! Excelent! Trim works, applications are blazing fast, and in general I'm having a new experience on a 3-year old machine.

Having said all that I want to stress out that the transition was not problem free. I've encountered the issue, of having to move my User files on my old HDD to save space on my SSD. And so I did. I created Symlinks in place of the old folders and that seemed to work Grand! so happy!

I stress out "SEEMED". It seemed to work ok at first.

Above is a picture of my home folder and it's icons. Not all folders are on the HDD. For example, I wanted to keep the Music Folder on the SSD to have iTunes load the itunes library blazingly fast, so I just symlinked the iTunes Media folder on the HDD.

Also I wanted to keep the Library folder on the SSD to help with launch and stuff.

So I could not move the entire Users Folder to my HDD and I had to make SymLinks of each of the folders I wanted there.

So here comes the problem:

In the above picture you see My finder window. Although on the right hand side, my folders have the correct icons for them, on the sidebar all the folders that are symlinked appear as normal folders. Also, My symlinked folders all appear in English and I've set my locale to Greece in order to have Greek names on Home Folders. Greek names only appear on the side bar which is odd...

So to sum up, I need to get the sidebar folders working again for the folders that are broken (Movies, Documents, Downloads, Pictures and Google Drive)

I also need to have the System realise that the symlinks are actually the Default folders and apply localisation names on them (I cannot do that by simply renaming them cause it renames the symlink thus breaking the default paths)

I appreciate all your help in advance.

PS. I also realised a new problem. I cannot get the sidebar Network icon working. I was forced to remove it from the sidebar (although it's icon was working) and I'm unable to place it there again. I took a look in the

˜/Library/Preferences/com.apple.sidebarlists.plist

and it appears that the Network is "AlwaysVisible". So it should appear at least on the Finder > Preferences > Sidebar if not on the Sidebar itself. Dragging the Network icon on the sidebar doesn't work either. I would much appreciate help with that as well.

 

[50548]

Your post is too convoluted for my tired brain to get it right now - anyway, why don't you simply move your home folder location as per User Account preferences, and THEN symlink the few folders you wish back to the SSD?

 

[escozul]

Your post is too convoluted for my tired brain to get it right now - anyway, why don't you simply move your home folder location as per User Account preferences, and THEN symlink the few folders you wish back to the SSD?

It's not that simple. Such a process would lead me to have symlinked many system files and files that are hidded in the home folder. if you make an ls -la in your terminal you'll see what I'm talking about. Many apps tend to use the home folder to place a hidden preferences file in there. That would lead into having some files on the SSD (symlinked) and some on the HDD (the files that will be created AFTER I symlink everything). I hate my files being all over the place. It's not so... let's say "tidy". Furthermore any new updates or major upgrades of the OS might break that install which makes that solution not only untidy but also dangerous.

I much prefer to find a solution to my current problem.

Thanks for the advice but I've already considered that setup and decided it was too complex and had a couple of danger zones (so to speak).