Pse help me troubleshoot my home folder

[pullman]

Hello everyone,

I've had my home folder on a separate drive in my Mac Pro 3,1 since Leopard. It has worked flawlessly and has been a speedy and stable setup until El Capitan.

In El Cap it takes a lot longer for the computer to boot fully to the desktop. The desktop appears quite soon after boot but is empty for up to 10 seconds, often with a beachball spinning before the icons appear.

I am also encountering beachballs in programs, such as Photoshop CS6, where I previously had none. In addition, starting programs take a long time; Safari bounces probably 20-30 times before showing up.

I have OSX and all applications on an SSD. Most of the home folder is on an HDD but I have my photos on yet another HDD due to space requirements.

I am wondering what I could do to troubleshoot. So far I have tried with a new Admin account on the SSD with the home folder relocated to an HDD. That account has no boot delays at all.

The only other thing I can think of is that the home folder HDD has a very elaborate ~Library folder which has tagged along across OSX versions. I have done clean installs for each new OS version and have not always installed exactly the same, or the same version of, applications. I am wondering if this could be the cause of the slow loading to fully booted.

Thank you very much in advance for any assistance.
Philip

 

[Gregg2]

Create a new user on the external. See if it is faster. If so, move your stuff and delete the old user.

 

[pullman]

Thank you very much for the reply Gregg.

Just so I understand what you mean - isn't this what I already tried (new account with home folder on external HDD)?

Thanks very much in advance
Philip

Create a new user on the external. See if it is faster. If so, move your stuff and delete the old user.

 

[pullman]

Just a gentle puff. Thank you for any further help and clarification.

 

[Gregg2]

So far I have tried with a new Admin account on the SSD with the home folder relocated to an HDD. That account has no boot delays at all.

New account on an external but with the home folder on the Mac's hard drive? I was suggesting the new account on the external, and assuming it was understood that the home folder would be there as well. Maybe I'm in over my head...