Storing Home Folder on a separate drive OK?

Can I store my Home Folder on a separate drive? I am thinking about getting a Raptor drive for my boot drive. But the size of the HD won't fit all my music, docs, movies and pics.
If this is OK, and it does not screw with the OS, how do I do it?
Copy to a new drive, but how do I direct the OS to that Home Folder and apps to save info there?

Hi
You can - you just have to make sure that you always have the external drive connected all the time, otherwise the system will create a blank home folder. It's probably not a great idea to do this for a portable computer. Instead, I'd recommend perhaps moving just your music, pictures and/or movies.
Matt

Similar Messages

How does installing programs work when user folder moved to separate drive?

Hi everyone
I have my user folder on a separate drive from my boot drive.
I have set up a new installation of OS X on a third drive and pointed the main account's user folder on that third drive to the user folder drive.
This means that the dock that shows up when I boot off that third drive contains aliases linking to programs on the ordinary boot drive.
If I install programs on the third drive and make aliases in the dock, will that cause a conflict when I boot off the ordinary boot drive?
And if I remove from the dock aliases linking to the ordinary boot drive, will they then disappear when booted off the ordinary boot drive?
Thanks for any insight.
/p

I tried that.
1) I created a standard user account called "Test."
2) While logged in as Test I edited the sidebar. Then I logged out and back in again to confirm that the settings were retained. They were.
3) While logged in as Test I copied the user folder from SystemDisk/Users/Test to DataDisk/Users/Test.
4) I logged out of Test and logged in as Admin.
5) I changed the home directory for the Test account to /Volumes/DataDisk/Users/Test.
6) I deleted the directory at SystemDisk/Users/Test.
7) I logged out of Admin and logged in as Test.
8) I edited the sidebar. Then I logged out and back in again to see if the settings were retained. They were not.
9) I repeated steps 3-7, this time moving the home directory back to its original location at SystemDisk/Users/Test.
10) Again I edited the sidebar, logged out and logged back in again. This time the settings were retained, just as they had been before I moved the directory in the first place.
Since the functionality returns when I move the home directory back to the system disk, I've concluded that it is not due to any corruption of library files or such. It seems to be a problem with the location of home directory.
V.K., in your configuration, is the account with the moved home directory an Admin account or a Standard account? I have not tested this with an admin account and I suppose that might make a difference.

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.

Is it possible to install my home folder on an external drive?

I need to hand my MacBook in for repair, but I don't want any of my documents on it when it goes in to the repair shop. I have full Time Machine back-ups of the entire laptop, but is there any way I can install my home folder on an external drive so that while my laptop is being repaired I can continue working as usual with my external hard drive plugged in to another (older, smaller hard drive) laptop?

Get an empty external drive properly formatted. Get Carbon Copy Cloner 4.0 and use it to backup your Home folder to this external drive. Create a new admin user account and turn off auto login if it is enabled. Reboot the computer and sign into the new user account. Delete your user account.

How to relocate Home folder to second internal drive

What is the process to migrate my Home Folder from the boot drive (256Gb SSD) to a new internal drive (960Gb SSD)? Can this be accomplished in finder or should one use the Terminal window?

Interesting, I'm having the same issue on my MacBook Pro that has both an SSD (for the OS and Apps) and a Hard Disk in place of the Superdrive. This config worked just fine with Mountain Lion; since upgrading to Mavericks this morning, I am unable to log into my personal account that has its home folder on the hard disk.
Unfortunately, it also seems to be an issue with the library folder, as I've been able to solve this issue with symlinks just fine with the exception of Library: the system keeps asking me to key in my password because the Library folder "needs to be repaired".
I can't move my Library folder to the SSD, as it is way too big (for whatever reason) - the SSD is only 96 Gig.
What is so different here is that the hard disk in the system is encrypted - I think this is the problem. I don't understand why, though, because under ML, I just logged in as admin after every reboot, which mounted the encrypted disk and then logged out / logged back in with my user account - it worked just fine.
Something seems to have changed with Mavericks regarding making available the encrypted HD...
Oddly enough, on my Mac Mini at home, which also has the SSD/HD pair, the moved home folder works fine - of course, here the HD isn't encrypted...
I hope someone has a fix for this, otherwise I'll have to go back to ML!

Home Folder on external firewire drive

I copied my home folder to my external firewire drive and used the Advanced Settings in Accounts to redirect the Volume path to the location of my new home folder.
All worked well for about a week and then for some reason the path to the home folder was renamed and was una ble to be accessed at login. I had to reinstall SL and then redirected the Home folder path back to the external drive. All worked OK for about a day and then the same issue arose.
It looks like SL is renaming the volume from "/Volumes/WD 4TB/minimac" to "/Volumes/WD 4TB 1/minimac".
Basically it is adding a 1 after the WD 4TB
When I try to edit the path in the Advanced Options in Accounts it still is unable to find the original volume.
To date the only way I can fix it is to do a clean install of SL and redirect the home folder to the external drive.
Any suggestion to stop the volme changing name?

drive name changing usually happens when an external drive is not unmounted cleanly or if an application tries to write to that drive when it's not there. then a phantom drive is often created. in finder go to go menu->go to folder and in the resulting popup enter /Volumes
this will open /Volumes in a finder window. that folder contains mount points for all your drives. they look like aliases. there may also be a phantom drive with the name of the external which looks like a regular folder.
this phantom drive is the problem. when finder tries to mount the external and sees that there is already something by that name in /volumes it adds 1 to the name of the mount point of the external to differentiate it from the already existing item.
delete the folder for the phantom drive form /volumes and remount the external. it will mount without 1 at the end. of course this might happen again in the future and you might have to repeat the procedure. as I said, the main reason why this happens is when a drive is not unmounted properly.
Message was edited by: V.K.

Importing Home Folder after new hard drive and Lion Update

(Okay, long title.)
Had to replace my hard drive. Was running Tiger.
Backed up my entire Home Folder only, on an external harddrive, before it failed completely.
Hard drive replaced, and then loaded Snow Leopard, updated to latest version, 10.6.8.
Ready now to get Lion.
Questions:
- After I install Lion do I simply use the "Transfer Information to This Mac" feature to bring in my Home folder?
- What about the apps that are duplicated, such as Mail, Safari, iCal, etc. Will that be taken care of on its own?
- What about the iLife apps, GarageBand, iPhoto, etc.? Will I be able to update those to the latest versions?
Thank you.

If the username and password combo is identical, then you'll need to unhide the new hidden user's Library folder, then open both home folders and transfer you're stuff. Do note that you might get you can't do that messages. For those items, move the new ones into a newly created Desktop folder, and then you should be able to copy the Tiger ones. Once done, restart so the copied stuff is put into RAM and is available for your other steps, such as reinstalling the apps.

Time Machine does not backup home/user directory (on separate drive)

I recently installed a SSD into my Mini. Due to size restrictions, my home/user directory has to be kept on another drive. I retained the stock 1TB drive that came with the Mini for this.
Ok, installed the SSD, restored a Time Machine backups (sans user data). Used a different admin user and configured my user to use the 1TB drive for it's home directory (/Volumes/1TB/home/<user>). Restart, log in as my user, all is good. All data, settings, etc is there. Everything looks normal.
Time Machine REFUSES to backup this directory. It will backup the 1TB drive and anyting else I create in it, but not the home directory. I tried every permission trick I could think of or found online. I even tested it further by formatting the 1TB drive fresh, adding a new user, configuring the user to use the 1TB for their home directory and it still won't back it up (this was a test of permissions the OS set, to make sure I didn't change my data perms somewhere along the way). Time Machine would not backup the new user's home directory on the 1TB drive.
Any thoughts? I can't be the first person to have their home directory on a non-OS drive.
If I were to create a folder/file in /Volumes/1TB/<test file> ... Time Machine gets it perfect. It just will NOT touch /Volumes/1TB/home/<anything here>
Thanks!

Open the Time Machine preference pane and unlock the settings, if necessary. Click the Options button. If there is one particular folder with items that are not being backed up reliably, add it to the list of excluded items. If there are many such folders, add your home folder to the list, or add a whole volume (i.e., what Apple calls a "disk.") Save the changes.
Start a backup, or wait for one to happen automatically. When it's done, open the preference pane again and remove the exclusion(s) you made earlier. Back up again and see whether there's a change.

How to Encrypt Home Folder Located on External Drive

I have an iMac 5K with a 512GB internal SSD. I decided to relocate my users' home folders to an external HDD due to their size (won't all fit on the SSD).
That part is working fine. However, it has now dawned on me that I would like to encrypt those home folders in case that external HDD is stolen. The problem, of course, is that by encrypting that external HDD, those users won't be able to login, since you can't login if your home folder is not immediately available.
Only solution that I read about is to have another user (with a home folder on the SSD) login first after startup and decrypt the HDD. The would then allow the other users to login successfully.
Is that the solution I should go with here? Or is there some other approach that will work better? Or should I move my home folders back to the SSD and just keep the large stuff on the external HDD?

If your pictures, music, movies are not sensitive, you could relocate those to the external drive.

Home Folder Issues after data drive move.....

Hello All,
I have a Mac OS X Server Leopard (latest version) that we have had running without too much troubles for some time now. When we ran out of space, I added a new large hard drive into our xServe and dittoed the user home folders to the new drive. I unshared the home folder file on the old drive, and then setup an identical share on the new drive. When users login on the mac, the system finds the home directory on the new drive fine, no issue.
The problem arrises when the user does a connect to server request. Their home folder comes up in the list and they mount the drive. However this share-point seams to be the folder still on the old drive. I have now deleted the folder containing the user home folders on the old drive, but it simply gets recreated when as user does a connect to server request. This folder is not longer shared and I can't understand why it still comes up with this old share point.
It is not a huge issue, but rather annoying.
Any ideas would be great.
Thanks
Michael

Functionality for customized setups may differ slightly with a new os. Power cycling the device daily is always a good idea for maintenance.
I don't really consider having groups of icons on my home screen a customized setup. This is a native feature of the Android OS and something on the update caused this issue. I've been running 4.3 on two other devices (Nexus 7 and Sprint Galaxy S4) for months and I've had zero issues. If I didn't use folders I would need to fill up 3+ home screens just to have enough space for the apps I have on my main home screen. I have an identical setup on the Sprint Galaxy S4 (test phone for work) that is running 4.3 and I don't have this issue.
Second, are you officially saying that rebooting an Android device on a daily basis is a best practice? I typically reboot my phone every couple of weeks, but daily seems a bit excessive. Since the update I have to reboot at least once every 2-3 hours during the day to resolve the folder issue. It's the first thing I have to do in the morning to be able to access any apps that are within a folder.

Can I put my startup/home folder on an external drive?

I would like to stripe my four internal drives for a high-performance RAID 0 for video editing.
Is there ANY reason that it would be unwise to put my applications/library/system/users folders on an external firewire drive? (Of course I will continue to do regular backups of these folders, regardless of where they live.)
Any performance issues, startup issues, etc, that I should be aware of?

External drives are slower than internal drives but otherwise there's no reason you could not do it. I would not recommend it. I would leave one internal drive as your startup drive and stripe the other three. This would be the faster and more reliable alternative in my opinion.
Consider putting in a goodly amount of RAM which will also help with video work and limit the amount of disk usage during editing of large files.

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...

Clean install of 10.9.2 on a separate drive: Home folder questions

Hi everyone
I've run 10.7.5 for a long time on an SSD in my Mac Pro with my home folder on an internal HDD.
Today I installed another SSD (actually a striped array of two SSDs on a Sonnet Tempo Pro) and put 10.9.2 on it.
Is it safe under 10.9.2 to use that old trick in Users & Groups -- right-click the user name, select Advanced and choose the HDD as home folder?
Also, I've seen comments that one shouldn't have the entire home folder on a separate drive if that drive is a mechanical drive. Can someone point me to instrux on which parts belong best on an SSD and which on an HDD and how I go about selecting them?
Many TIA
Philip

Hi. Thanks for the reply. Does Time Machine by default exclude System and Applications Folder (I didn't click any option to exclude those I remembered)? How do I not exclude the Applications folder and System files this time around?
In Time-Travel view when I point it to the Applications folder, it switches to the Volumes folder and the Restore is dimmed. I wonder if it's incompatible because it's not Apple's Time Machine or it's a bug with Moutain Lion (the drive is backing up the new clean install of Mountain Lion now but when I test it, use Migration Assistant if I need to restore things again, it still doesn't see it as a Time Machine backup).
What could be the solution? Should I reinstall my applications again (I guess that's a blessing in disguise, now I can declutter)?
Thank you.

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.

Hard drive died - multiple problems with backed up home folder

My friend called me when she started having some problems with her home iMac. After we did went through a myriad of troubleshooting items, I determined that her hard drive was failing and suggested she backup her home folder immediately to another drive. She copied her home folder over to her old Mac and took the iMac into the Apple Store for further diagnostics. Sure enough, her hard drive had failed and they replaced it for her.
She reinstalled Leopard and set it up with a new account. We tried using the Migration Assistant to copy her old home folder back over but because she copied it rather than using Time Machine, Migration Assistant doesn't see it as a viable home folder. I'm very comfortable using the Terminal since I support both Macs and Linux in my department so I logged in as root and copied over her folders to the new account. That generally worked but we now have a ton of permissions problems of which Disk Utility doesn't fix. I'd like to start fresh again from her backed up home folder. So my question is if I can't use Migration Assistant to move over her old home folder, how do you make OS X see her old home folder as a viable account? (I hope this makes sense.)
Thanks in advance!

I would suggest the following.
make a new temp admin account and get rid of the new account she made already. log in as the temp user and copy the old home folder from the external to /Users. then go to system preferences->accounts and make a new account with the same short user name as the name of her old home folder. It will say that a home directory by that name already exists and ask if you want to use it. say "yes". this should recreate that user and take care of all permissions issues.

Storing Home Folder on a separate drive OK?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for