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Why Base Mac Mini users do all sorts of things to move their home folder to an external drive?
- Thread starter hajime
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I use my Internal for OS and Apps AND I use an pair of externals for file, photos, videos, etc
I do that so that I do less touches on the Internal and because it just makes sense to use a replaceable drive when editing and doing a lot of writes. I don't expect the internal to hit the normal life writes, but if it is still doing the same work in 5 to 10 years the internal SSD may actually hit the wall. lol
I use a TrueNAS to keep all the files that are not currently being worked on.
I do that so that I do less touches on the Internal and because it just makes sense to use a replaceable drive when editing and doing a lot of writes. I don't expect the internal to hit the normal life writes, but if it is still doing the same work in 5 to 10 years the internal SSD may actually hit the wall. lol
I use a TrueNAS to keep all the files that are not currently being worked on.
Which SSDs have failed? I have two Black SN850X and one Samsung 990 EVO Plus (all 2TB) running originally on my Win 11 box and now on my Mini M4 with zero issues.
Now if you were talking about dealing with Sandisk that is a different story. The are not nice at all LOL
Been considering this issue for some time. Planning for a purchase this year, I think I've decided to just get a Mac with internal 1TB storage, instead of using external devices for boot or home.
I've used external devices to boot for at least 15 years, first for an iMac whose internal HD failed, and even for the current (Intel) iMac because the internal SSD is too small. (Bought it used with the intent on booting from external SSD.)
But, going forward I've looked at the costs and I'd actually pay more for an external TB enclosure with fast 1TB stick, than simply paying Apple $200 (for the Mini with M4 Pro or possible future Studio.)
And given the Mac wants to use as much memory as possible and do swapping, a fast boot storage is a must, with plenty of extra gigabytes to spare.
I've used external devices to boot for at least 15 years, first for an iMac whose internal HD failed, and even for the current (Intel) iMac because the internal SSD is too small. (Bought it used with the intent on booting from external SSD.)
But, going forward I've looked at the costs and I'd actually pay more for an external TB enclosure with fast 1TB stick, than simply paying Apple $200 (for the Mini with M4 Pro or possible future Studio.)
And given the Mac wants to use as much memory as possible and do swapping, a fast boot storage is a must, with plenty of extra gigabytes to spare.
Today I attached my new Orico MiniDock w/ Samsung 990 EVO Plus 1TB SSD to my base M4 Mini.
Am I right that keeping the macOS and Apps running internally means keeping the Home folder where it is?
So now I just need to move the music, photos, videos, etc. folders to the external drive, and tell the supporting Apps the new external destination folders, right?
Could anyone direct me to a good tutorial for such an endeavor?
You are on the right track. In the App Store app go to preferences and under locations, choose the location of your external SSD. Same for apps like Logic, photos, and even for music if you keep a large downloaded library.
I recommend specifying the new location the App Store, then download an app you have installed before and redownload it. Or go to your applications folder and delete anything large and then go back to the App Store and download it again. The OS will then create a directory and set itself up for running apps from that location on your SSD. Once the voter is there, you can even go back to your applications folder and select several role applications to move into the new external location.
If after this you still have plenty of room generally on your internal, you can continue forward like this. If you need to clear internal space I’m going to recommend that if you want to start moving the contents of some folders in your home drive to the external.
Starting with your largest space consumers, like Documents, if you know how to *move* a whole folder you can move individual folders entirely out of your home directory and onto the SSD. Once the folder is moved you can right click to create a *symbolic link* and move that link back into your home directory. One of your largest ones is going to be your library folder but I really don’t suggest moving it unless necessary.
Currently Music is my biggest folder/library(?), but I'm expecting Photos and Videos to possibly challenge Music in size. It seems to me that those three need to be moved to one partition on the external, and then have Time Machine backups in the other partition(s). I am also going to get a refurbished base M4 Pro MacBook Pro.
How to Create and Use Symbolic Links (Symlinks) on a Mac
Use symbolic links to store application files elsewhere without breaking the app that depends on them.
www.howtogeek.com
Download and install large apps to a separate disk
In the App Store, you can choose to download apps larger than 1 GB to an external disk.
support.apple.com
Change where your music files are stored on Mac
On your Mac, change where your Music files are stored on your computer. You can also manage your files and create folders for better organization.
support.apple.com
Move your Photos library to save space on your Mac - Apple Support
To save storage space on your Mac, you can move your Photos library to a different storage device.
Change Files settings in the Apple TV app on Mac
In the Apple TV app on Mac, set options for folder locations, automatic delete options, and more.
support.apple.com
Just in case anyone is thinking about moving their home folder to an external drive I would discourage it. Yes Apple lets you do it, but it breaks one thing that is super helpful when dealing with user accounts: Migration Assistant. Turns out Migration Assistant only works on drives that have Mac OS installed directly on them.
So if you are running low on internal HD space I would just buy an external drive large enough to hold everything (OS, applications and home folder) and make that your start up disk. I recently had to do this with my parents M1 Mac Mini. On the internal drive I only keep the base OS and applications with a bare bones "admin" account (no Apple ID) for boot and recovery purposes. I Carbon Copy Cloned this onto an external SSD, added a second user account and copied their home folder there. The external SSD is then set to be the start up drive. To avoid confusion I turned off "show hard disks" in the Finder settings, this way you only see the external.
The advantage here is if I encounter any issues I can boot off either internal or external. When a software update comes out I do the external first and if things go sideways I have the internal drive on the previous OS as an immediate backup. I even keep a downloaded copy of the latest OS update on the internal so I don't have to wait to pull it back over WiFi. Since the OS is on both drives I can run Migration Assistant to put my parents account on another drive or a different Mac when needed.
So if you are running low on internal HD space I would just buy an external drive large enough to hold everything (OS, applications and home folder) and make that your start up disk. I recently had to do this with my parents M1 Mac Mini. On the internal drive I only keep the base OS and applications with a bare bones "admin" account (no Apple ID) for boot and recovery purposes. I Carbon Copy Cloned this onto an external SSD, added a second user account and copied their home folder there. The external SSD is then set to be the start up drive. To avoid confusion I turned off "show hard disks" in the Finder settings, this way you only see the external.
The advantage here is if I encounter any issues I can boot off either internal or external. When a software update comes out I do the external first and if things go sideways I have the internal drive on the previous OS as an immediate backup. I even keep a downloaded copy of the latest OS update on the internal so I don't have to wait to pull it back over WiFi. Since the OS is on both drives I can run Migration Assistant to put my parents account on another drive or a different Mac when needed.
Has that been working properly for you? I used to do this with my Macs, I ran my 2012 Mini like this for 3 or 4 years. But starting with Big Sur, Carbon Copy says you shouldn't do it anymore...
I might have originally used Apple's installer to get the OS onto the external drive then used CCC to move everything over. CCC support page mentions that if you run your back up task regularly the copy should remain bootable.
I am not sure if you need a technically bootable copy for Migration Assistance to do its magic, but (based on my messing around) it appears the OS system data must be on the same drive for it to be recognized. This CCC knowledge base https://support.bombich.com/hc/en-us/articles/20686482554519-I-want-to-migrate-data-to-a-new-Mac says: "The user accounts on your Mac have unique characteristics that are bound to a specific installation of macOS." this appears to be the gotcha of why you can't just point Migration Assistance at a volume that only contains a users home folder. Reading more on CCC's support pages: https://support.bombich.com/hc/en-u...restore-from-your-backup#install_then_migrate even they say Migration Assistance is the perfered way to get your data back, not CCC.
as mentioned upthread i haven't done this in years, but if you have your home directory on an external disk, why do you need migration assistant? you just physically migrate the external disk (or a copy of it) to the new computer, use another adminstrator account to create the old user account on the new computer, and point its home directory to the external disk.
it might not work right anymore but 2 or 3 versions of macosx back (and going back from there) i did this every couple of years with no issues.
it might not work right anymore but 2 or 3 versions of macosx back (and going back from there) i did this every couple of years with no issues.
Make sure you create the two new accounts in the same order as the originals. This is to avoid having to mess with permissions. Permissions on files/folder are stored by UID (not username) and the first user is always 501 and the second 502.
you can change the user ID's though - or at least you could back in the day - i made my UID the same as my UID on my work unix systems just for fun. so in theory if you can still do this it shouldn't be a problem to set the UID to match the old UID when making the new account. in the end i think chown -R would still probably get you out of that mess.
i'm still thinking about trying this though because assuming one can get a proper thunderbolt enclosure for an SSD that keeps it cool, the next time i upgrade my mac studio i might skip the enormous internal SSD and try going external to save a few thousand. i'm a little wary of it based on how my last experience went, but it might be because i was trying to use a rotational drive and OSX is just not optimized for that anymore.
if the mac mini could be outfitted with 128GB of ram that would be an option, with the 3rd party internal SSD upgrades starting to appear. but if i understand it right they don't work with the higher spec M4 CPU (yet?)