How do I move my Home folder to an external drive?

I am leaving for 3 months. I want to copy the entire Home folder on my iMac to an external drive so I can take it with me. I want to clean up the files/folders, sort and delete thousands of iPhoto pictures, organize hundreds of genealogy documents, etc., using my MBPr. When I return home, I want to replace the old Home folder with the cleaned up one. I thought I could simply drag and drop the Home folder to the external drive (2 TB) but twice now I get these two dialogue boxes mid-way. After the second, the copy window disappears and copying stops. A shadow of the Home folder is on the external drive, but nothing else. Can this be done? How? Thanks!

1, Yes. Making a partition for the clone is what you want to do if you want a bootable clone.
2, If you want a bootable clone, you do not want to create disk image.
3, Dragging and dropping will not get all of the files the was cloning software will. Using drag & drop uses more superficial commands then the cloning software uses. So that is is not able to get everything.
The next two link are a couple of site that explain how to set up SD to clone a disk.
http://www.lansharks.net/lansharks/SuperDuper_Backup_Instructions.html
http://mac.appstorm.net/how-to/hardware-how-to/how-to-make-a-bootable-hard-drive -clone-with-superduper/
The link below is the complete manual for SD
http://s3.amazonaws.com/com.shirtpocket/SuperDuper/SuperDuper.pdf
I hope think helps.

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Message was edited by: Sakahara

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