Just to let everybody know, I found a pretty straightforward way to do this without having to mess with every single app's preferences. I have a 13 mbp and I replaced the HDD with an intel SSD. The original HDD went into the optibay instead of the superdrive. At first I just moved my whole home folder to the HDD, so that iTunes, iPhoto and everything else would have worked on there not filling up the SSD with unnecessary stuff. But then I felt like my HDD was spinning most of the time and I read that, as I thought, it is better to leave the ~/Library folder on the SSD to avoid this, since every running app basically reads and writes to this folder all the time. So here's what I did:
1) I moved the home folder back to the SSD, copying my ~/Library folder from the HDD in there (this is its default location so you don't have to do anything if you never changed it)
2) I rebooted the mbp and deleted every folder in the "new" home directory except the Library one:
a) Open Terminal
b) Type: sudo rm -rf Folder
change "Folder" accordingly (eg. Downloads)
3) I created links from the "new" home folder to the old one for every folder I wanted to stay on the HDD (Downloads, Music, Movies etc.). This is how you do it:
a) Open Terminal
b) Type: ln -s "/Volumes/HDD Drive/Users/name/Folder" "Folder"
you have to change "HDD Drive" with the name of your HDD, "name" with your username and "Folder" whith the folder you are linking to (eg. Downloads)
If you never moved your home folder you must also create corresponding folders on the HDD before doing this, and point every link to the right folder, wherever you created them.
That's it, this way every app will just be redirected to the HDD when accessing one of the folders in your home directory, while the Library folder will stay on the SSD improving speed and possibly battery life when compared to moving the whole home folder to the HDD.
Finally, you would also want to do the same thing for a couple of other folders, that are:
~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Mail Downloads
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Webpage Previews
I did the same thing with the ~/.Trash folder, I don't know if this even makes sense but whatever, you need a couple more lines to do it:
1) Open Terminal
2) Type: sudo rm -rf .Trash
3) Type your password
4) Type: ln -s "/Volumes/HDD Drive/Users/name/.Trash" ".Trash"
Last thing, I don't know if doing this with the Desktop folder will cause any issues, what do you think? (EDIT: yes it works)
NOTE:
I had an issue after going through this process, so that when I tried to delete a file from the HDD it always said "This item will be deleted immediately. You can’t undo this action.". I messed around a bit with permissions and stuff and got around it:
Open finder > right click on the HDD > Get Info
Make sure you have permissions to read and write, then click on the wheel at the bottom of the window and select "Make me the owner" if available and then "Apply changes to all enclosed items"
Check "Ignore ownership for this volume"
Reboot and you should be fine
btw, I now have that same issue when deleting files from the SSD, this is fair since all my data is on the HDD but I'm still looking for a better solution.
I hope this will help somebody, cheers
1) I moved the home folder back to the SSD, copying my ~/Library folder from the HDD in there (this is its default location so you don't have to do anything if you never changed it)
2) I rebooted the mbp and deleted every folder in the "new" home directory except the Library one:
a) Open Terminal
b) Type: sudo rm -rf Folder
change "Folder" accordingly (eg. Downloads)
3) I created links from the "new" home folder to the old one for every folder I wanted to stay on the HDD (Downloads, Music, Movies etc.). This is how you do it:
a) Open Terminal
b) Type: ln -s "/Volumes/HDD Drive/Users/name/Folder" "Folder"
you have to change "HDD Drive" with the name of your HDD, "name" with your username and "Folder" whith the folder you are linking to (eg. Downloads)
If you never moved your home folder you must also create corresponding folders on the HDD before doing this, and point every link to the right folder, wherever you created them.
That's it, this way every app will just be redirected to the HDD when accessing one of the folders in your home directory, while the Library folder will stay on the SSD improving speed and possibly battery life when compared to moving the whole home folder to the HDD.
Finally, you would also want to do the same thing for a couple of other folders, that are:
~/Library/Mail
~/Library/Mail Downloads
~/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Webpage Previews
I did the same thing with the ~/.Trash folder, I don't know if this even makes sense but whatever, you need a couple more lines to do it:
1) Open Terminal
2) Type: sudo rm -rf .Trash
3) Type your password
4) Type: ln -s "/Volumes/HDD Drive/Users/name/.Trash" ".Trash"
Last thing, I don't know if doing this with the Desktop folder will cause any issues, what do you think? (EDIT: yes it works)
NOTE:
I had an issue after going through this process, so that when I tried to delete a file from the HDD it always said "This item will be deleted immediately. You can’t undo this action.". I messed around a bit with permissions and stuff and got around it:
Open finder > right click on the HDD > Get Info
Make sure you have permissions to read and write, then click on the wheel at the bottom of the window and select "Make me the owner" if available and then "Apply changes to all enclosed items"
Check "Ignore ownership for this volume"
Reboot and you should be fine
btw, I now have that same issue when deleting files from the SSD, this is fair since all my data is on the HDD but I'm still looking for a better solution.
I hope this will help somebody, cheers
