Backup system with home folder on separate drive

I have a 13" macbook pro late 2011 and I have recently moved my 500gb hard drive to the superdrive bay and put an SSD in its place. I have the operating system on the SSD and my user folder on the hard drive with the necessary changes made to my user account pointing the OS to the new location. If I create a normal backup in say time machine or carbon copy cloner including my user folder in the backup, will the link to the second hard drive automatically work thus giving the backup the impression all is on the SSD or do I need to backup each separtely or something else...? I have an empty 500gb external drive for the backup.

If you only backup the SSD, then the home folder on the HDD will not be automatically backed up, so you will want to assure that your backup method include the SSD and the home folder on the HDD.

Similar Messages

Home Folder on Separate Drive from Start-up?

I've got my data files, including iTunes and iPhoto, on one hard drive and my system stuff and applications on the other. I've seen references to moving the Home folder to a separate drive. Right now, mine is just 3 gigs. What are the pros and cons of this?

hi niel.
i just want to make sure i understand this. in part i want to minimize what i have on the 2006 and get it on the 2012 i think.
A. the home folder contains all my DATA and all my preferences and everything, yes? so when i tell sys prefs that it is on another hard drive i am basically storing everything related to the OS and my documents on this disk, yes?
B. i mean, i could move the Documents section to another hard drive with no consequences , yes?
C. can i move the home folder for Lion on 2006 mac pro back to the drive in bay 1 - - and then simply take the Data Drive in Bay 3 and put it in my 2012 mac pro? i mean, i would tell sys prefs that the home folder is again on drive 1 and i could take the disk out of bay 3 and put it in the new computer? i guess this might not be optimal since a lot of the system prefs that were on lion in the 2006 would now be on the 2012?
just trying to figure out how to migrate over to the 2012 at this point i guess...

How do I relocate part of my home folder onto another drive

Hi all
I am about to take delivery of my new Mac Pro, but with only 512MB of startup SSD I don't have room for my whole home folder. I have found plenty of info online about moving my whole home folder onto another drive, but as my external drive is only USB3 I don't want to do that. Instead I want to move my Movies and Pictures folders only and then tell my system to forget about the old location and treat the new location as though it is the home folder just for those two bits.
Sure I can just copy them over and delete the old folder contents, but as soon as I want to do something like save a pic or movie the system defaults to the old empty location.
It's not the end of the world, but if I can fix it, I'd like to. The plan is to sort this on my current Mac Mini before the new toy arrives, so I can easily set up the new one.
All guidance gratefully received.
Regards
Tim

Hello,
You can use some basic unix wizardry to make this happen. What you will be doing is creating a unix "soft link" from your home directory to the actual location of the directories, wherever they may be. This link serves as a "behind-the-scenes redirect" to the actual location to which you link. For example, with the soft link in place, if you
Here's what you do:
Use Finder to move your directories of choice from your home directory to the external HDD. This will require your admin password. Now you should see the folders on your external HDD, and NOT in your home folder. For purposes of this procedure, I will assume your external HDD is named "Storage". Wherever you see "Storage" in the following steps, replace it with the actual name of your external HDD.
Open the Terminal app.
From the command prompt, type the following commands (with a <return> after each) to create a soft link (in this example we are using the "Movies" folder. The "Movies" folder must have been moved in Step 1 to the external HDD):
cd
ln -s /Volumes/Storage/Movies Movies
Repeat the "ln -s" command for each folder that you have moved in Step 1.
Here's what's happening in Step 3:
The "cd" command just ensures that you are in your home directory.
The "ln -s" command creates a link from the external HDD directory, to a directory in your present location (i.e., your home directory)
There is one side affect that I don't know how to get around. Once you do this, the icon that shows up for the "Movies" folder in your home directory will no longer be the fancy system icon for the Movies folder. It will be a vanilla folder icon, with an curved arrow. The curved arrow is a visual indication that the file/folder is link to somewhere else.
Hope this helps.

Please help with Home Directory and changing drive location

Hi there.
I read some tutorials on moving the home folder to another drive (all went fine), but there are some things I don't quite understand.
I did a fresh Lion install (from SnowLeopard) and decided only to migrate my user data, but no folder data, so every folder in my home directory was completely empty (desktop, movies etc). When I first tried to move my home directory to a new Hard Drive I wrongly assumed that since all those folders were empty I didn't need to copy the home folder manually, just change the location. But when I restarted the computer everything was gone. So I followed the instructions more carefully the next time and manually copied my home folder over to the other HD first (even though every folder contained in the home dir says no data), and that is when I noticed it was copying 26gb of data. So where is this data stored, and what is it? Obviously it's important as on my Mac all my user data was gone, but aren't my settings and mail etc in my Library?
There seems to be no "show hidden data" etc for my Home dir. So there must be somethign about the Home directory (in the users folder) that I don't quite understand?
I have 26gb of data hiding somewhere (when I do 'get info' on the home directory in the user folder, it says 26gb used, but all my folders are empty) and it would be handy to know what this is and the best way to manage it for future backups.
also - can I now completely delete the old home Dir from my System (SSD) drive since it's all on my other HD? All the folders are empty, but it still shows 26gb!
thanks for your help
Joel

Hi Ari,
Welcome to discussions!
Unable to access your home directory... In what way? Via FTP? If so, how about deleting the file you made:
cd /etc
sudo rm ./ftpchroot
Or do you mean something else?
John

Can Tiger run a dual boot system with the two internal hard drives

Can Mac run a dual boot system with the two internal hard drives both running Tiger?
Dual 2.5GHz G5
I am wanting to use one hard drive with Tiger to run my graphics stuff and then reboot and use the other hard drive for video.

Yes, you can set that configuration up.
(26293)

How to reformat secondary drive with Home folder on

Hi guys, I have an issue and Im getting myself confused as to how to go about this.
Basicly, I have a 250 GB SSD bootdrive and a 750GB HD data drive.
On the SSD is Mavericks and a couple of apps, on the data drive is eveything else, home folder, apps etc.
I have just bought Adobe's creative cloud subscription and it wont allow me to install anything because the data drive is case sensitive. So I need to reformat the data drive to non case sensitive, it wont allow me to install it onto the SSD which is already non case sensitive, as it only allows instalation where the libary and home folder is, stupidly.
So far Ive backed eveything up both though a network time machine and also Ive backed up all my documents from the home folder, the libary and system folders and a few apps onto an external USB drive. However I cant backup my movie folder with all my final cut pro stuff on, because its too big for the external drive, it is however backed up through time machine.
Now I need to format the data drive, but Im not sure how to go about this without messing up the home folder and user aspects, as surely as soon as I format it, Ive bascily lost myself as a user.
I thought about moving the home folder back to the SSD temporailly, and then reformating, But in order to do this, I'd have to delete the entire movie folder off the data drive first to get it to fit on there, which is only backed up via time machine. I know all the stuff on the data drive is going anyway, Im just a bit paranoid about deleting it all before doing anything else. Is this the only way around it, or is there another way?
Can I move the bulk of the home folder back onto the ssd, but not the movie folder, to enable me to keep my user account and reformat the drive before putting the home folder back onto the data drive, or shoul Ijust delete the movie folder and hope I can get it back through time machine..
Ive read using time machine to reinstate the whole drive will revert it back to case sensitive, is this true? Or can I just copy folders off time machine back onto the newly formatted non case sensitive drive? So my movie folder can just be copied back to the newly formatted data drive without issue?
Thanks for any help, I dont want to mess up all my permissions and user accounts and my head just inst working right at the moment to figure out the best way.

Your best bet is to clone both devices onto two separate drives, or together onto a larger external hard drive that can cover the capacity of both with its own separate partitions. http://www.bombich.com/ Carbon Copy Cloner is able to do that for you. Test your clone boots and is mapped correctly before erasing the drive in question.

How do I Rename Mac Hard Drive with Home Folder Only?

Hello,
I have a Macbook Pro with an SSD which has OSX Snow Leopard and my Applications, and the other hard drive has my Home Folder. I replaced the optical drive with the SSD.
The other hard drive has the standard name of 'Macintosh HD'. I need to change it to something without spaces in order to get some developer software to work (i.e., it can't have spaces in the workspace name, and now that my Home folder is on a drive that doesn't have OSX, it refers to it as '/Volumes/Macintosh HD/.../...'
I ran into a disaster by simply changing the 'Macintosh HD' name to 'MacintoshHD' - It prevented me from logging in and I had to use the OSX Install disk to use the command line to rename the hard drive back to 'Macintosh HD'. My guess is because my account was referencing a home folder location that no longer existed.
My question is how can I rename my hard drive with my Home Folder? Can I change the hard drive name, and then immediately change my Account to reference the new hard drive name (and thus the new location of my home folder), and then reboot? Will this work if I do this in this order? Or is there another way to handle this entirely?
I'm very hesitant to try this again as I don't want to have to go back and use the OSX install disk - my SSD took the place of the optical drive and I have to go and take it out, put it back in...etc.
Any help is appreciated.
Regards
Chicago29

I don't have a setup to test this, but you might try the following:
Create a second "normal" admin account with its home folder on the boot drive, then log out of your regular account and log into the new one. From there you could rename the large hard drive, then go to System Preferences>Accounts, select the first account, then right-click>Advanced options to change its home directory path to match the new HD name. That way you're not changing the home folder path "in mid-air."
It's probably a good idea to keep a tiny "self-contained" admin account on the boot drive anyway, so you don't get locked out in the event of future trouble accessing the large disk.

How do I move my home folder to secondary drive in ML?

Hello,
I've tried a bunch of methods I found by searching but they all appear to only be for Lion. It was basically moving the folder while logged in from another admin account, and repointing to the new location from System Preferences. Everytime I try, I log back into a new profile. The reason to do this is because I installed a SSD and replaced the optical drive with the original hard drive in a 2012 15" MBP. I'd like to keep my home folder on the secondary (original) HDD.
Thanks

Use backup software such as Carbon Copy Cloner 3.5.2 to copy the /Home/ folder to your secondary drive. Do not yet delete anything from your primary drive. Open Users & Groups preferences, click on the lock icon and authenticate. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on your account entry in the list and select Advanced Options from the context menu.
Click on the Choose button to the right of the field labeled, "Home dir:". Navigate in the File browser to your /Home/ folder on the secondary drive. Select the Home folder itself then click on the Open button. You must Restart immediately. After restart you will boot from the primary disk but be using the Home folder located on the secondary disk.
Once you know it is working you can remove the contents of the folders in the /Home/ folder on the primary drive. Do not remove the folders themselves. DO NOT remove anything from the /Home/Library folder. This is in case you must switch back to using the Home folder on the primary drive.

Moving User Home Folder to External Drive

I'm using 10.3.6 and over a year ago (maybe 2) I found a trick (in a magazine and on the web in a few places) to move my user folder to an external firewire drive. I haven't been able to find it since. In a fit of New Year's cleaning I accidentally disconnected the firewire drive while the system was running. Upon restart the system had created a new user folder for me back on the startup drive. All my files are still in the user folder on the FWHD.
I looked in the NetInfo Manager and it shows my home property as being on the external drive with the correct path. I also deleted the property and re-added it thinking that might make it take a look again. Nope.
I've deleted/renamed the newly created file. But it just creates a new one.
I've learned the barest amount about symbolic links and done
ln -s /Volumes/Titian/Users/rothrock /Users
in the terminal. I've combined that with renaming/deleting the existing one, as well as either just a logout and login or restart.
I'm at my wits end and would really like to be able to have all my files and settings back the way I used to.
First question does anybody know how to do the equivelent of "blessing" a user folder?
If not, how can I set up a new user that has its home folder on the external HD and then just copy all the files back over? (My start up drive is way too small and I need the space.)
Sorry for the cross-post, but I'm thinking the Unix folks might not visit the other sections too often.

Of course as soon as I say I can't find the original trick I think I found it. But maybe not.
http://www.bombich.com/mactips/homedir.html
I tried this, but the first command sudo ditto etc. should copy the existing user directory (on my startup drive) to the external drive, right? But it doesn't do that. So I'm a bit confused.

About to fit SSD to take OS & Apps - can I locate my Home folder on another drive?

Hi community.
I am shortly to fit a new SSD (probably 240GB) in the primary bay of my MacBook Pro (17", 2.66GHz i7, mid 2010, model MacBookPro6'1). I'm going to retain the existing 500GB drive and mount it in the optical drive bay for data. I will be installing Mountain Lion as the OS on the SSD to begin with (I may upgrade to Mavericks). I will then be running Boot Camp to partition the SSD (probably 120/120) and install Windows 7 (I am doing this to run Autodesk Revit for a course).
My current drive has some 150GB of space used, 107GB of that in the Users folder. What I want to do is locate all of that data on the drive that will be in the optical drive bay. I assume that's feasible enough? Any reason I shouldn't do it? Any other wisdom to offer?
Thanks in advance.

You can and should.
How to use an SSD with your HDD
If you are going to use an SSD as a boot drive together with your existing HDD as the "data" drive, here's what you can do.
After installing the SSD you will need to partition and format the SSD using Disk Utility. Then, install OS X on the SSD. After OS X has been installed boot from the SSD. Use Startup Disk preferences to set the SSD as the startup volume.
Open Users & Groups preferences. Click on the lock icon and authenticate. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on your user account listing in the sidebar and select Advanced Options from the context menu.
You will see a field labeled "Home dir:" At the right end you will see a Change button. Click on it. In the file dialog locate the Home folder now located on the HDD (HDD/Users/account_name/.) Select the folder, click on Open button. Restart the computer as directed.
When the computer boots up it will now be using the Home folder located on the HDD.
Another more technical method involving the Terminal and aliases is discussed in depth here: Using OS X with an SSD plus HDD setup - Matt Gemmell. This is my preferred approach because I can select which of the Home's folders I want on the HDD and which I don't want. For example, I like to keep the Documents and Library folders on the SSD because I access their content frequently.
Be sure you retain the fully bootable system on your HDD in case you ever need it.

Multi-OS installation and one home folder on another drive?

I wish to use Nikon Scan with my film scanners I need to install Snow Leopard because it is the last supported OS since it includes Rosetta.
I currently have Lion on the boot drive of my Mac Pro and will install Snow Leopard and Nikon Scan on a dedicated drive.
My homefolder is on yet another drive.
My question is if this setup will cause any problem for my home folder?
I would have thought no, but want to be sure.
Many TIA
Philip

If you desire different backgrounds, screensavers, network, etc. You also cannot have any preference panes installed in the /Home/Library/ because they will not all work on each OS. Same for any Application Support files, possibly Mail data/configurations, and Safari. Anything in the /Home/Library/ folder that may be OS dependent cannot then be used by both OSes.
I don't think it's a good idea. Doing this is mostly intended for different versions of the same major OS version. For two different Snow Leopard versions, for example. I do it when I'm testing a new OS seed. But for separate OSes I would not.
Now, if you desire to keep a Home folder on a separate drive, then I would keep the two different Home folders on that drive and select the one intended for use with each OS. This would be a much cleaner approach.

Backup 3: Define Home Folder ? wwwroot Included?

Does anyone know what exactly is getting backed up?
I notice that Backup 3 lets me backup my home folder. Cool. Does that mean my entire home folder? Specifically I do web development and one of my main folders is the wwwroot folder of ColdFusion development server. This file is located in Applications/ColdFusionMX7/wwwroot.
I have used SilverKeeper for years and with that I can specifically select folder within Applications but I notice Backup 3 will not let me select folders within Applications. Shall I continute to back this up with SilverKeeper?
Also if I elect to Backup my homefolder then I assume I do not need to indvidually select Pictures, Address Book, or other iLife settings right?

I don't see anything different about yours from mine. I have no problem renaming another account home folder.
All the reasons I can guess at for it not being available you seem to have verified.
Copy and paste in this command in Terminal. Make sure there is a space after what you paste, then drag in the old home folder. It will list the ACLs and any Finder flags on the folder.
ls -dleO
You should only see this after the line listing the folder info:
0: group:everyone deny delete
In the first line of the output, you should see a - between "staff" and the file size number.
There isn't any difference between the move command and doing it with the Finder, except the safety of not typing anything wrong. I imagine the Finder calls mv when it renames, but I don't know for sure.

Lion Update with Home folder on another disk

Currently with Snow Leopard I have my home directory on another disk. If I update to Lion, will I have problems? Or will it just work. Or will I have to redo the moving of the home folder?

Should work. Do retain a bootable backup/clone or Time Machine backup of your current Snow Leopard installation to ensure you can work if the upgrade goes awry.

Home folder on external drive

I use my Mac mini as a server in the net- my homefolder with all my data is located on an attached external drive. My work I actually do on a Macbook (other user account!) that is on this network. Nearly all the programs running on the Macbook refer to the liberies on the external drive attached to the mac mini.
My Question: Would it be wiser to refer the path of the homefolder of user of the macbook to the homefolder of the user of the Macmini (on the external datadrive) I hope then the Macbbook would be just a surface for using the programs...and all data will be automatically loaded central on the external drive. For exampel when I insert a CD into the Macbook its data will be imported to my musicfolder on the external drive in the net....Hope it is not to difficult...Lots of thanks...Yours Frank

My Question: Would it be wiser to refer the path of the homefolder of user of the macbook to the homefolder of the user of the Macmini (on the external datadrive) I
No this would not be wise as if you were out and about with your macbook it would look for your home folder on an external drive. Do you plan to take your external drive with you?
I can see where you are going with this but the answer for this kind of setup is portable home folders a feature only available with Mac OSX Server software.
For exampel when I insert a CD into the Macbook its data will be imported to my musicfolder on the external drive in the net....Hope it is not to difficult...Lots of thanks...Yours Frank
You dont need to reconfigure your homefolder to do this. You just setup itunes to have default music folder anywhere you choose. itunes-->preferences-->advanced-->itunes music folder location
So you would setup itunes to use a music folder on your network drive.

[solved] dolphin home folder on user drive slow to access, if at all

i cant access my home directory right now. i have it mounted to a seperate hard drive.
i noticed that it has been slow lately, but for the last couple days, it takes about 10-20 minutes sometimes to load the drives contents through dolphin, constantly says searching until it finally loads.
the access through the shell is fine.
i am using disk-by-uuid , could this be the problem? i have not made any changes to hardware.
anybody had this problem and know what it could be?
Last edited by wolfdogg (2011-09-09 19:59:48)

well, that program is night and day against dolphin, its working much faster, that is, until i browse to my home directory, then i get the same lag, it wont load the home directory. But i do notice as far as browsing the network, there is 0 lag on the network files, which is never the case with dolphin. But atleast it doesnt hang up like dolphin has been when it cant load the home dir.
yes fstab, thats what i was looking for, i am mounting with uuid, and im thinking thats part of the problem. i would prefer to use uuid if i can fix the problem around it, because i sometimes swap my drives around(havent yet since i built arch though)
# /etc/fstab: static file system information
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0 #from fstab.pacnew 2011-0823
devpts /dev/pts devpts defaults 0 0
shm /dev/shm tmpfs nodev,nosuid 0 0
# <file system> <dir> <type> <options> <dump> <pass>
UUID=1bfda6a1-e889-419e-b636-9b65cd32d1e3 swap swap defaults 0 0 #turned swap off for /dev/sda2 temporarily for debugging
UUID=916db1b3-f70b-4f50-941a-f0f8ab2d6be5 /home ext4 defaults,relatime 0 2
UUID=92135cad-5b09-40b7-93a5-d64149a8f0ba /boot ext2 defaults,relatime 0 2
UUID=a46be4f4-1087-4202-b69c-e4ce55763a15 / ext4 defaults,relatime 0 1
$ findmnt
TARGET SOURCE FSTYPE OPTIONS
/ /dev/disk/by-uuid/a46be4f4-1087-4202-b69c-e4ce55763a15 ext4 rw,relatime,user_xattr,acl,barrier=1,d
├─/proc proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime
├─/sys sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime
│ └─/sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl fusectl rw,relatime
├─/dev udev devtmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,size=10240k,nr_inod
│ ├─/dev/pts devpts devpts rw,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000
│ └─/dev/shm shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime
├─/run run tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=1
├─/tmp tmpfs tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime
├─/home /dev/sda4 ext4 rw,relatime,user_xattr,acl,barrier=1,d
├─/boot /dev/sda1 ext2 rw,relatime,errors=continue
└─/mnt/smbnet smbnetfs fuse.smbnetfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=99,gr
[root@redtail wolfdogg]# findmnt
TARGET SOURCE FSTYPE OPTIONS
/ /dev/disk/by-uuid/a46be4f4-1087-4202-b69c-e4ce55763a15 ext4 rw,relatime,user_xattr,acl,barrier=1,data=ordered
├─/proc proc proc rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime
├─/sys sys sysfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime
│ └─/sys/fs/fuse/connections fusectl fusectl rw,relatime
├─/dev udev devtmpfs rw,nosuid,relatime,size=10240k,nr_inodes=496633,mode=755
│ ├─/dev/pts devpts devpts rw,relatime,mode=600,ptmxmode=000
│ └─/dev/shm shm tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime
├─/run run tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,noexec,relatime,size=10240k,mode=755
├─/tmp tmpfs tmpfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime
├─/home /dev/sda4 ext4 rw,relatime,user_xattr,acl,barrier=1,data=ordered
├─/boot /dev/sda1 ext2 rw,relatime,errors=continue
└─/mnt/smbnet smbnetfs fuse.smbnetfs rw,nosuid,nodev,relatime,user_id=99,group_id=99,allow_other
and heres the descriptors
# fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 320.1 GB, 320071851520 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 38913 cylinders, total 625140335 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x14b20cf3
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 63 208844 104391 83 Linux
/dev/sda2 208845 738989 265072+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda3 738990 77553663 38407337 83 Linux
/dev/sda4 77553664 625140334 273793335+ 83 Linux
Disk /dev/sdb: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0004cef2
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 351630720 976768064 312568672+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
/dev/sdb2 63 351630719 175815328+ 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
Partition table entries are not in disk order
Disk /dev/sdc: 500.1 GB, 500107862016 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 60801 cylinders, total 976773168 sectors
Units = sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x04f50d3d
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdc1 63 976768064 488384001 7 HPFS/NTFS/exFAT
Last edited by wolfdogg (2011-09-08 21:34:52)

Backup system with home folder on separate drive

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