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About to Install SSD

vogelhausdesign

vogelhausdesign

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 7, 2009
227
0
Columbus, Ohio
Hey everyone, Just a real quick question as I'm a bit confused about this;

I'm about to install my SSD and I want to make sure my configuration is optimal. After reading the forums here and doing a little searching I came back confused about where to place Home folder and Applications. about 50% say move home folder to another drive and use SSD for boot, and 50% say not to.

What I'd like to do is move EVERYTHNG but my OS/Apps to another HDD. Is this possible? How would I do this? The impression I'm getting is that if I re-locate my home folder my apps go with it and I'd like to avoid symbolic links if I can so I don't get myself into trouble.

Also, is it best to clean install OS 10.xx then upgrade and re-install apps? I was planing on cloning my boot HDD to the new SSD, thanks
 
I had a fairly clean setup so cloned my drive to my new SSD

I moved my Home folder to a 2TB drive, I was wary about it at first as some people said they have had problems but I have had absolutely none at all!!!
 
One major advantage of having your home folder on a different drive is how easy it makes to re-install the OS (e.g. after a drive failure) or to upgrade to a new version (if you choose to format and reinstall). I've been running with my OS on one drive and my entire /Users folder on another since I got my Mac Pro in 2006, and I've not seen any adverse effects from doing so. When I eventually upgrade to an SSD, I'll be doing exactly the same.

Incidentally, I have a symbolic link from /Users to the root of my second hard drive (where the individual user folders reside) and that's not caused me any problems either.
 
As long as you have gone through settings and told it to use the new folder as your home folder you should be fine to delete the original. Of course if you have anything valuable in there then back it up first.
 
If you delete the home folder and for some reason your relocated home directory is not accessible you wont be able to log in. I would suggest leaving your original home folder in place and just deleting the data files.

You should also enable root user so that you can log in and reassign the home folder in the future if you have to troubleshoot the new home drive.
 
I'm doing the same thing (OS and Apps on an SSD, everything else on a HDD) No problems. It's been great so far.

Go to Accounts, unlock, ctrl-click your account, Advanced, and you can change the home folder location.
 
Everything is running great after the install.. I have one problem though and it's a big one. I'm a font collector, I do design professionally so I have a ton of fonts. After I Carbon Copied the drive and booted from my SSD for the first time, I opened Linotype FontExplorer Pro and it's asking me to locate my font files, it offers to select my old font folder that it kept for me before, but even after selecting "move fonts to new folder" and selecting a folder off of my boot, i'm watching my SSD get less and less space.

After inspecting the files, it's creating a Linotype folder in "Shared" under users, and filling it with duplications. Is there any way to move this folder all together? or to stop this action? Sorry I know not all of you are doing design work but I hope someone can help.
 
moving the Home folder is a must for me. So easy to do too.

Then only your OS and Apps are on the SSD, which is exactly how I have it. No reason not to move your home folder.
 
Everything is running great after the install.. I have one problem though and it's a big one. I'm a font collector, I do design professionally so I have a ton of fonts. After I Carbon Copied the drive and booted from my SSD for the first time, I opened Linotype FontExplorer Pro and it's asking me to locate my font files, it offers to select my old font folder that it kept for me before, but even after selecting "move fonts to new folder" and selecting a folder off of my boot, i'm watching my SSD get less and less space.

After inspecting the files, it's creating a Linotype folder in "Shared" under users, and filling it with duplications. Is there any way to move this folder all together? or to stop this action? Sorry I know not all of you are doing design work but I hope someone can help.

By the way, after deleting the contents of my /var/tmp folder, I got my boot space down to 29gig.. I'd like to keep it that way.

PS, is it safe to use Secure Empty Trash from SSD?
 
^anyone have a solution for the above post???

Also, how do I go about doing a clean install of SL + importing my applications folder so I dont have to re-install 40 Apps? My user/home folder are on a separate drive
 
vogelhausdesign said:
^anyone have a solution for the above post???
Click to expand...

Stop worrying about the SSD. You cant possibly wear it out under normal use. Besides, loading lots of font files will be very quick from the SSD. You paid for it, you might as well enjoy the benefits;)
 
Hellhammer said:
You should be able to use Migration Assistant to import the apps
Click to expand...

So if I wanted to do a clean install of SL on my SSD ( it's already installed but I found I cloned my old drive with some problems, now those problems transfered to my new drive ) and its the only drive with my OS and apps, how do I go about doing that?
 
You copy the existing disk (the SSD) to another HDD using carbon copy or the equivalent and then you erase the SSD and install SL from scratch. Then you use migration assistant to move the applications from the HDD to the SSD.

Once that is all done you wipe out the HDD and I suggest you then make the changes to move your user files to the HDD and use the SSD for apps and OSX only, not user files.
 
vogelhausdesign said:
^anyone have a solution for the above post???

Also, how do I go about doing a clean install of SL + importing my applications folder so I dont have to re-install 40 Apps? My user/home folder are on a separate drive
Click to expand...

You can move your entire 'Users' folder to your hard drive. From the Terminal, type:

sudo ditto -rsrcFork -V /Users /Volumes/Users

Change "/Volumes/Users" to the mount point of your hard drive - it will still be in /Volumes, but the sub-directory name will be different (my drive is named "Users", so it mounts at /Volumes/Users).

Then move your old "/Users" folder out of the way:

sudo mv /Users /Users.old

Then make a symbolic link to the new folder:

sudo ln -s /Volumes/Users /Users

Again, replace "/Volumes/Users" with the mount point of your hard drive.

Then reboot.

Note: try the above at your own risk. It works for me. No liability can be assumed if you try the above and it messes things up.

As for importing your /Applications folder, you may be able to do that, but what about all the other files that are installed, in places such as /Library/Frameworks and the like? You'll have to bite the bullet and reinstall. You have an SSD - it shouldn't take long!
 
Appreciate the help guys, however my users folder is already on another drive. My situation is as follow, only apps and os are on my SSD currently. I'd like to clean install sl, as I cloned a drive with a few problems, but somehow clone my apps folder to avoid a weekend of reinstalling. Is there any way to do this?
 
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