Moving Library off ssd to hdd

[krypticos]

ill start off i am not sure where to post this at on the forum.

so as the title reads im trying to move librarys in my home folder to my hdd. i was going to use a symbolic link. my issue is that i cant copy the folder. it gets about half way through the transfer and says i dont have permissions to copy this file and it is terminating the transfer. all i am doing is dragging and dropping the folder and entering my password.

how can i transfer this folder.

i have already symbolically linked every other folder in my home dir.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

My suggestion is, don't. Link any folders that are large (e.g. music, pictures) and leave the rest alone.

 

[krypticos]

what is the harm in it. there are guides showing how to do the hole home folder by changing the location with the advanced options under the user control panel and i didnt want to lose stuff so i was making every thing symbolically.

 

[bist]

what is the harm in it

• The Finder will probably trash the security when copying files.
• Some files are open for writing by applications and services.
• Do not copy system files using drag&drop.
• Some applications may not work with symlinks.

So, FreakinEurekan is right: It's less risky to only simlink some "choosen" folders, because most folders in your profile are small enough to not bother moving them and lose performances.

Before anything, here's an easy way to check the size of the folders (from the terminal):

du -h -c -d 2 ~

The "-d 2" part is the "depth" of the analyse. 2 should be enough to have a general idea.

IMPORTANT: Some older version of "ditto" are not going to work without explicit options on the command line (This post is for Mavericks only).

Whatever, a way to copy something from your home fodler is:

• Create a new admin account and do everything from this account. That'll avoid problems with open files.
• From the terminal, use "sudo ditto" to copy the files/folders.
• Do not delete something before testing: rename it.
• Symlink.
• Check the result (See below the "LS" command).
• Relog with your original account and re-check that everything is working.

An example (Copying the "Public" folder to a "Work" dedicated drive):
Log-in from another admin account and launch the terminal (It's not necessary for the "Public" folder but it'll be for "Library")

• Copy the files/folders from you original account:
  

  sudo ditto /Users/your_original_name/Public /Volumes/Work/Public

• Check the security with this command:
  

  ls -lave /Users/your_original_name
  ls -lave /Volumes/Work

  Both should give you the same result for the copied files (Public). All line are important (The second line is the ACLs, they are part of the file system security!).
  

  drwxr-xr-x+  6 your_original_name  staff    204 Dec 31 15:34 Public
  [B]0: group:everyone deny delete[/B]

In doubt, try to copy your Public folder somewhere using the Finder and

ls -lave the_public_copy

... The ACL's are probably gone (Public is an example, but a lot of other folders are going to have ACLs)

 

[photosmike]

I had the same problems you describe. I could not successfully copy my media files. I backed up my files using Time Machine & Carbon Copy Cloner (external hard drive). I deleted the library/Media files. Created the symlinks and restored the files from the CCC backup.

To do it this way, you need to have confidence in your backups.

 

[krypticos]

thank you everyone for your posts. this does help me a lot.

after doing the du -h -c -d 2 command. i see that there is really only one folder i would want to move and that is mainly because it wouldnt hurt if it was moved. that is my mail folder, 5gb of mail.

Grant after moving everything that i have im barley using my ssd with a hole 32.77gb used so maybe ill just not worry about it after all. knowing how to move stuff in terminal is still very handy thanks again all