Home Directory on NAS

Discussion in 'iMac' started by Khristian, Apr 25, 2012.

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  1. Khristian, Apr 25, 2012

    Khristian macrumors newbie

    Joined:
    Apr 25, 2012
    #1
    Hi,

    I currently have my home directory folders (Desktop, Documents etc) on an external drive and point to the relevant folders using the "ln -s" command in Terminal ('ln -s "/Volumes/Data/Documents" Documents' etc).

    What I am wondering is, is it possible to have these folders on a NAS Unit, the reason for this is my NAS has 2 x 3TB drives (RAID) so that there is a constant backup of all data (not just user folders) rather than just relying on Time Machine.

    The problem I have come across is that OS X does not always connect to the network prior to logging in, so mapped drives are not always available before any links could be created.

    Can anyone please advise if there is a way round this, or suggest an alternative method.

    I currently use Wireless to connect to the router and NAS, but can easily swap that for an ethernet connection.
     
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  2. Taz Mangus, Apr 25, 2012

    Taz Mangus macrumors 68040

    Taz Mangus

    Joined:
    Mar 10, 2011
    #2
    I am not sure if you are aware of this but you don't have to create symbolic links. Under System Preferences -> Accounts, press Control and mouse-click on user, select Advanced Options... In the Home Directory field specify the path to where you located the user home directory. Before you do that, copy over the whole user home directory to a location on the external HD. Once you have copied over the user home directory and point to the new location in Accounts, you can delete the user home directory from the boot HD. Always test before deleting any user data from the boot HD.

    As far as moving the user home directory to a NAS, you need to make sure that the NAS gets mounted and seen by the OS running on the iMac. Ethernet connection is going to be your best bet in this case. You could try a test by creating a test user and point the test user home directory to a location on the NAS. Reboot the Mac and then attempt to login to the test user.
     
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