Adding a 2nd drive for data. Which folders to move?

Discussion in 'Mac Pro' started by qveda, Sep 12, 2009.

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  1. qveda, Sep 12, 2009

    qveda macrumors regular

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    #1
    My Mac Pro had the single 320gb drive that came with it. To improve performance, particularly with programs like Photoshop, I'm adding a second drive for data.

    Which folders should be moved to the new data drive, and which should remain on the boot drive ?

    For example, the root of my Macintosh HD has:
    • Applications
    • Library
    • Users (which includes subfolders: MyName and Shared)
    • System

    Is it reasonable to simply move the entire MyName folder to the data drive , and leave everything else on the Boot/Apps drive ? Just drag it to the new drive? Any tricks or tips I should consider ?
     
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  2. UltraNEO*, Sep 12, 2009

    UltraNEO* macrumors 601

    UltraNEO*

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  3. qveda, Sep 12, 2009

    qveda thread starter macrumors regular

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    My next step may be to replace the orig 320gb boot drive with an SSD. But for now, having data on a separate drive from OS/Apps should improve performance somewhat.

    Question: is there any downside of moving the entire User folder to a new drive? or is it "safer" to simply move MyName folder (which I believe is only data).
     
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  4. Tesselator, Sep 12, 2009

    Tesselator macrumors 601

    Tesselator

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    Profile the drawer sizes first but usually all you need to move is the Users and Library folders. I know how to move Users but I haven't tried moving the Library folder yet so I dunno how to do that or if it's easy. Application is the next to consider but usually this isn't needed in a 300GB space. I recently cleaned out (by hand) the extra gunk in the Library and Users folders and my VERY fat (too many apps installed!!!) system is only about 240GB. Before cleaning it was 700 GB tho. :p I didn't need to touch the Applications folder at all. There's no downside to moving the Users folder except for easy portability/backup. Again I haven't tried the Library folder yet. There sure is a lot of useless crap in Library folder tho! Geeez!
     

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  5. qveda, Sep 12, 2009

    qveda thread starter macrumors regular

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