Should I move just the User Folder or entire macOS to external SSD?

[Doug183]

I have:
-2018 Intel Mac mini, which is a T2 Mac.
- Its has a 256 GB Internal non upgradable SSD which is now too full and there isn't a lot I can delete - Adobe Apps and Parallels and my user folder take up a lot of the space. Plus all that Apple "System Data" that I can not seem to delete (58.49 GBs).
- Running Monterey 12.5.1
- I just bought a Samsung 1TB external SSD that will connect via USB-C.

So should I just run the entire system off the external Samsung or should I just move the User folder?
(Long ago, I ran with a user folder on an external bigger drive, but at times found it slightly buggy.)

Looking for real world experience with either set up.

Thanks
Doug

 

[Fishrrman]

You don't want to move the home folder or the OS from the internal drive.

REASON WHY:
Speed.
It's that simple.

I, too, have a 2018 Mini (I'm typing this reply on it).
Using BlackMagic Speed Test, I get reads of 2,600MBps from the internal drive.

The maximum speeds you will see from a Samsung drive:
- If it's USB3 (such as t5), you'll get reads around 430MBps.
- If it's USB3.1 gen2 (such as t7), you'll get reads around 830MBps.

Compare that to what you get from the internal drive.
Do you really want to "set the machine back" like that?

Your problem is that you may have TOO MUCH DATA on the internal SSD.
You need to "move off" some things (such as your libraries of pics, videos, etc.) to the external SSD.

BUT... leave the OS, apps, your [basic] account ON the internal drive.

If you use time machine (I have NEVER used it), you need to get rid of "local snapshots" which eat up space behind-the-scenes.

With careful "pruning", you can clean up the internal drive and keep using it -- again, because of SPEED.

Also be aware:
If you move files to an external drive, now you have ANOTHER drive that needs to be BACKED UP.
So that may involve getting a second backup drive, as well.

 

[Doug183]

You don't want to move the home folder or the OS from the internal drive.

REASON WHY:
Speed.
It's that simple.

I, too, have a 2018 Mini (I'm typing this reply on it).
Using BlackMagic Speed Test, I get reads of 2,600MBps from the internal drive.

The maximum speeds you will see from a Samsung drive:
- If it's USB3 (such as t5), you'll get reads around 430MBps.
- If it's USB3.1 gen2 (such as t7), you'll get reads around 830MBps.

Compare that to what you get from the internal drive.
Do you really want to "set the machine back" like that?

Your problem is that you may have TOO MUCH DATA on the internal SSD.
You need to "move off" some things (such as your libraries of pics, videos, etc.) to the external SSD.

BUT... leave the OS, apps, your [basic] account ON the internal drive.

If you use time machine (I have NEVER used it), you need to get rid of "local snapshots" which eat up space behind-the-scenes.

With careful "pruning", you can clean up the internal drive and keep using it -- again, because of SPEED.

Also be aware:
If you move files to an external drive, now you have ANOTHER drive that needs to be BACKED UP.
So that may involve getting a second backup drive, as well.

Good points. I will see what I can move. The real issue is I shouldn't have cheaped out years ago.

 

[rpmurray]

You have Thunderbolt 3 ports on the mini so you could get a decent external Thunderbolt enclosure and NVMe drive and get some real hustle from the drive, not the puny speeds you'll see from from USB 3 (of any flavor).

 

[ItsAShaunParty]

I'm attempting the same thing as we speak. I have an earlier post about it.

Here's what I wrote:

I am on a iMac (Retina 5K, 27-inch, 2020)
3.8 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i7 72 Gb Ram
512 GB HD
Running Monterey 12.5.1

I bought this iMac with the intention to replace the HD, not realizing that Apple was soldering this one down. I didn't realize that it was near impossible until it was too late. It's been a few years and the HD is super crowded. I am left with a single choice: I am moving my home folder to an external.

I've read some other posts. A lot of people try to talk others out of this. I wish I could avoid it, but right now, I can't. So I want to make sure I do it in the safest possible manner.

How does this sound:

1. Log into a user account with admin access (not the account I want to transfer)
2. Using Carbon Copy, I copied the user folder of the account I want to transfer (/Users/[USERNAME]) to a new location on an external
3. Open System Preferences
4. Go to Users & Groups
5. Click the padlock and authenticate
6. Right (or control) click on the username to move and select "Advanced Options.."
7. Click on the "Choose..." button and point it to the new location
8. My next step was going to be to delete the information from /Users/[USERNAME]

I logged in and everything seemed fine. Until I received an iMessage from my brother. Messages did not recognize his phone number.

I'll admit, this isn't cause for panic. Except I started to think, "What else could be wrong!?" I didn't want to start to make changes to a home folder in a new location only to find out that some things didn't transfer and have to start to try to clean that mess. So I switched it back. And here I am.

That was a few weeks ago. Recently I tried again and some files didn't show. I'm starting suspect Carbon Copy as a culprit.

Any ideas?

And I hope this helps.

 

[danano]

Moving User spaces away from the System has worked fine for many years and through many versions of macOS. Unfortunately, it seems a bug was introduced with maOS 12.5.1 which interfere with moved User spaces. One known symptom of the bug is a user whose user space has been relocated cannot log in directly. The breath and depth of issues caused by this bug are not known, as discussed in Apple Discussions.

Unable to login with user folder on external drive since 12.5.1 upgrade

This new bug appears to allow what appears to be the same path name tin different places to have different functions. It may be that the new bug is only present in code for Intel processors (not in code for Apple Silicon).

Please provide feedback to Apple. I am concerned that with release of macOS Ventura soon, bugs in macOS Monterey will receive less attention.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I use "symbolic links" for some folders pointing to the real folders on external drives…mostly for large folders of audio software files that, by default, are installed to somewhere in the User folder.

 

[ItsAShaunParty]

Moving User spaces away from the System has worked fine for many years and through many versions of macOS. Unfortunately, it seems a bug was introduced with maOS 12.5.1 which interfere with moved User spaces. One known symptom of the bug is a user whose user space has been relocated cannot log in directly. The breath and depth of issues caused by this bug are not known, as discussed in Apple Discussions.

Unable to login with user folder on external drive since 12.5.1 upgrade

This new bug appears to allow what appears to be the same path name tin different places to have different functions. It may be that the new bug is only present in code for Intel processors (not in code for Apple Silicon).

Please provide feedback to Apple. I am concerned that with release of macOS Ventura soon, bugs in macOS Monterey will receive less attention.

I decided to put this off but I can't put it off anymore.

I've seen a few horror stories coming from Ventura.

What have you been doing?

 

[danano]

I cannot tell you about Ventura because I still run Monterey (12.6.8). My comments do apply to all the system updates from 12.5.1 through 12.6.8. My computer is a MacPro (2019). System and Applications are on the internal SSD. Most of my User Spaces are all relocated to an array of spinning HDs. My Photos Library is relocated to SSDs running on a PCIe card. Along with the Applications and System I also have a spare Admin User Space located on the internal SSD.

System software updates done from the "spare" user account work with no problem. Log out other users, log in to the spare account, do the update and when the computer restarts, log in as the spare user. Then immediately log out, and you can log in as a User with a relocated account, and all should be fine. This is the easy way to work around this bug.

If you forget the need to use a special account, or want to test for the existence of the bug, you can do the update from a user account which has been relocated off the System disk. In this case (assuming the bug still exists), on restarting your computer after applying the update, when you try to log in to your existing (relocated) account, you will find yourself logging in to a new user space. If you find yourself here, log out the relocated user and log in to an admin account located on the System disk to repair the problem.

The problem is an update done from a relocated user space results in creation of an alias for the Volume on which the user space is located. Deleting this alias I believe eliminates the primary damage caused by the updater bug. What I am calling secondary damage is while the alias exists you could do inappropriate things to your data.

To see and fix the problem, log in to an admin account located on the System disk. In the Finder Go menu, choose Go To Folder... and in the window that opens choose Volumes. The Finder window which opens will list Volumes available (which are usually hidden). One Volume will be the one which holds your relocated Users, and right beside it with the same name but a different icon, will be the problem alias. Delete this alias, restart your computer and all should be fine.

My guess is updating the Ventura should go OK if done from a user space on the System disk. After Ventura is installed, other, possibly relocated, user spaces I expect will work properly. If you do this update, let us know your experience. I plan to update to Ventura after I finish a big project or two which I am now in the middle of.

 

[ItsAShaunParty]

I cannot tell you about Ventura because I still run Monterey (12.6.8). My comments do apply to all the system updates from 12.5.1 through 12.6.8. My computer is a MacPro (2019). System and Applications are on the internal SSD. Most of my User Spaces are all relocated to an array of spinning HDs. My Photos Library is relocated to SSDs running on a PCIe card. Along with the Applications and System I also have a spare Admin User Space located on the internal SSD.

System software updates done from the "spare" user account work with no problem. Log out other users, log in to the spare account, do the update and when the computer restarts, log in as the spare user. Then immediately log out, and you can log in as a User with a relocated account, and all should be fine. This is the easy way to work around this bug.

If you forget the need to use a special account, or want to test for the existence of the bug, you can do the update from a user account which has been relocated off the System disk. In this case (assuming the bug still exists), on restarting your computer after applying the update, when you try to log in to your existing (relocated) account, you will find yourself logging in to a new user space. If you find yourself here, log out the relocated user and log in to an admin account located on the System disk to repair the problem.

The problem is an update done from a relocated user space results in creation of an alias for the Volume on which the user space is located. Deleting this alias I believe eliminates the primary damage caused by the updater bug. What I am calling secondary damage is while the alias exists you could do inappropriate things to your data.

To see and fix the problem, log in to an admin account located on the System disk. In the Finder Go menu, choose Go To Folder... and in the window that opens choose Volumes. The Finder window which opens will list Volumes available (which are usually hidden). One Volume will be the one which holds your relocated Users, and right beside it with the same name but a different icon, will be the problem alias. Delete this alias, restart your computer and all should be fine.

My guess is updating the Ventura should go OK if done from a user space on the System disk. After Ventura is installed, other, possibly relocated, user spaces I expect will work properly. If you do this update, let us know your experience. I plan to update to Ventura after I finish a big project or two which I am now in the middle of.

Interesting. I'm still putting this off. But am considering updating first. Have you updated yet?

 

[danano]

Interesting. I'm still putting this off. But am considering updating first. Have you updated yet?

I updated, but only to macOS 12.7. Same problems, and solution, still exist. Maybe I will move on to Ventura pretty soon.

 

[danano]

A couple of days ago I updated from Monterey to Ventura, with no problems at all. I first logged in to my admin account located on my System disk. After the update I logged out of that account and into my user account located on a different disk. All smooth sailing.

One change I have noticed is the new version of Photos, and its associated demons, have been running hard analyzing my Photos library. Now all but 7 photos have been scanned, while before the update about 1500 remained unscanned. Also, duplicates of 1600 photos and one video have been found.

 

[danano]

More info, given to me by high level Apple tech support, after consulting with Apple engineers.

If the User Space is relocated off the Startup Disk, iCloud Drive will not work in Finder. The workaround suggested is to access iCloud Drive in an iCloud Safari window. Relocating large data folders and files, such as the Photos System Library, off the startup disk still works as always.

 

[bzgnyc2]

More info, given to me by high level Apple tech support, after consulting with Apple engineers.

If the User Space is relocated off the Startup Disk, iCloud Drive will not work in Finder. The workaround suggested is to access iCloud Drive in an iCloud Safari window. Relocating large data folders and files, such as the Photos System Library, off the startup disk still works as always.

Janky. Another reason not to use iCloud/Drive. Being able to keep home directories on any drive/filesystem has been standard on UNIX for 50 years. I've kept my home directory seperate from the system partition since I started using MacOS X circa 10.1. Even on laptops where I keep it on a seperate hard partition of the internal disk.

I do have a seperate admin account which I keep on the internal drive. My regular account is marked "Standard" while I use the admin account to do all updates, software installs, etc. This has been reliable for me.

 

[HDFan]

iCloud Drive will not work in Finder. The workaround suggested is to access iCloud Drive in an iCloud Safari window.

So iCloud drive will replicate files to the cloud from the external disk but you can't see them in finder, just in Safari?

 

[wonderings]

Good points. I will see what I can move. The real issue is I shouldn't have cheaped out years ago.

or heaven forbid Apple actually design computers again that you can upgrade thus extending the life of your computer.

 

[bzgnyc2]

or heaven forbid Apple actually design computers again that you can upgrade thus extending the life of your computer.

Also true but I keep my files on a seperate disk (or partition in the laptop case) for management purposes rather than economizing on Apple storage. Having it seperate means I can completely wipe the OS without worrying about my files. On the flip side, runaway data fills up its disk and not the system making it easier to cleanup.

In the case of a desktop/etc, moving it just means unplugging it. If the main hardware fails and/or one needs to migrate to another system, unplug -> plug -> done.

Once you decide to keep all your data on an external disk, the internal disk of a desktop just becomes a playground for the OS and apps. Even 256GB seems like plenty (mine has partitions for 2 versions of MacOS X, 1 bootcamp, and an exFAT partition for when I thought I would actually use bootcamp and share files between it and MacOS X).

None of this is to say Apple shouldn't design computers that let one upgrade the internal SSD. It doesn't benefit the user one bit.

 

[danano]

So iCloud drive will replicate files to the cloud from the external disk but you can't see them in finder, just in Safari?

That is my understanding. I also think the issue is much more complicated than a question of what the user can see in the Finder. Some applications are "set up to work with iCloud", others are not, and some are supposed to work with iCloud but do not if my Documents folder is not on the Startup Disk.

Because of the hidden and, as far as I can tell mostly undocumented complexity of the issue, I decided to try to conform to Apple's expectation and move joy User Space onto the Startup Disk. To do so the user spaces need to fit in the nearly 700 GB of free space, leaving plenty for scratch space. A lot of reduction of the user space has been overdue good housekeeping, relocating static files to locations not associated with iCloud.

Moving files to reduce the size of my user space led to an interesting observation. After the size of the folders I could directly access (Documents, Downloads, ...) was reduced to a few GB each, my user space still occupied 623 GB, far too large to move back to my 1 TB Startup Disk. Most of this was due to ~/Library. GrandPerspective tells me a large part of the library is files put there by the System. About half the space is Photos-Diagnostics freports. Another large segment is Screensaver videos. I am uncomfortable manually moving files that were put in place bye the System. Does anyone have a recomendation for how to move or delete these files, to reduce the size of my user space?

 

[ThrowerGB]

I've kept my Music, Movies and Pictures folders on an external Samsung portable SSD (X5) for quite a few years. It connects via a Lightning cable with Lightning ports. There's about 213GB in those folders. I've never seen any significant slowdown.
For backups, the files in those folders don't change all that often so when backups run, the changes are relatively small and don't take up a large amount of time.
I use Time Machine for backups locally. I haven't seen a way with Time Machine to split out particular folders into separate backup locations. But that's not really an issue. I also backup to a cloud service which is, of course, much slower. I can split my files into groups for the cloud backups. That way I can take advantage of the media files not changing often and reduce to frequency of backups for the media file group. For the rest of my info, OS, apps, data, etc, I backup to the cloud much more frequently.

 

[gilby101]

I've kept my Music, Movies and Pictures folders on an external Samsung portable SSD (X5) for quite a few years. It connects via a Lightning cable with Lightning ports

I think you mean Thunderbolt, not Lightning. The Lightning port is what an iPhone has. Terribly confusing that the symbol for Thunderbolt is a lightning zig-zag!

I haven't seen a way with Time Machine to split out particular folders into separate backup locations.

There isn't one. TM is intended to be a complete backup from which you can recover the whole system. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to create backups of specific folders and volumes.

 

[gilby101]

So iCloud drive will replicate files to the cloud from the external disk but you can't see them in finder, just in Safari?

No. My interpretation is that there is no local iCloud Drive, but the files can be accessed, using Safari, directly from Apple's servers.

 

[ThrowerGB]

I think you mean Thunderbolt, not Lightning. The Lightning port is what an iPhone has. Terribly confusing that the symbol for Thunderbolt is a lightning zig-zag!


There isn't one. TM is intended to be a complete backup from which you can recover the whole system. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to create backups of specific folders and volumes.

Thanks for spotting and correcting. Yes it's Thunderbolt not Lightning. Thunderbolt 3 to be specific. And the Samsung Portable SSD X5 I use has been discontinued.