Separating data onto a second drive

[qveda]

I have a MacPro with 2 internal drives. I have OS and Apps on the MacHD drive, my intention is to put data on the second drive. I always install new apps only on the MacHD.

But when I look at the Data drive in the Finder I see the User folder (house icon), Applications, Library , System , and Users folders.

Does this seem right ? Are folders with these names supposed to be on both drives?

I'd like to do improve my housekeeping , file naming and organizing. So trying to be sure that everything is where it should be. I want to be sure that Applications are putting their data on the Data drive only. That way I can clone my MacHD (OS/Apps) ~ weekly, and backup my Data using Timemachine or other backup more frequently. Also helps speed things up to have the OS/Apps and Data on separate drives.

 

[Loa]

Hello,

No, those folders should only be on your OS drive. Try creating a new folder and putting them all in there. Reboot a few times to see if everything still works. If it does, you'll need to clean your data drive of all the system folders (some of which are invisible).

Loa

 

[Murray M]

This page will answer all your questions and then some!

 

[qveda]

This page will answer all your questions and then some!

Great resource! thanks.
I recall what happened to my system. a while back, I made a mistake using SuperDuper and started cloning my Mac HD (OS/App) drive to the Data drive instead of to the external to the external MacHD Clone drive. (I know, big error). I did some diagnostics and cleaning using Drive Genius. Everything seems to work fine. But I bet these duplicate folders are from that .

The house icon with my username seems to appear on the root of both the Mac HD and Data drives and it seems to be up to date in both instances. its that normal ?

I could back up my Data drive, then unmount it, and reboot, see if the Apps work. If all seems to work, then reformat the data drive, and restore only the data folders to it (Documents, Desktop, Pictures, Movies). I'm a bit nervous about it , but does that seem like a good way to fix this?

 

[qveda]

I believe I've fixed things. I was able to remove the duplicated Applications, System, Library files from my separate data drive and it only has my 'house icon' and its documents, etc

rebooted a few times, and all seems to be working.

thanks for the suggestions and help.

 

[karsten]

something you can do to ensure smooth os reinstalls is to only put your apps on the macos drive. make document, photo etc folders on your data drive then change those folders on your macos drive to links pointing to the data drive. that way you can wipe your os drive and reinstall and never lose anything. apps don't know the difference and function normally.

 

[derbothaus]

^^^ This. Use symlinks ala Unix:
ln -s /your/current/location (space) /to/your/new/location

Please do not type (space). Just use one