SSD/HD basic question--where to put files?

[StuinNR]

Hi, I know this is a dumb question, but I'm new to the dual hard drive world. I'd like to keep all of my applications on the 256 Gb SSD and all of the documents, iTunes/Logic songs, and other media on the 2 TB hard drive.

So, is it OK to put my "Users" folder on the HD, or do I need to move individual folders (e.g., Music, iTunes media, etc.) to the HD separately?

 

[rj86]

It's easy enough to move iTunes and iPhoto libraries to the secondary drive but as far as the whole user folder...

I'm still waiting for mine so I've yet to try this in practice but moving your homefolder can be slightly problematic.

 

[rikbrown]

For me, I kept my home directory on the SSD and just symbolic linked the stuff I wanted on the hard drive instead. For example, I wanted my Downloads folder to be on the hard drive - but still appear in my home directory.

Open Terminal.

Type 'sudo su' and enter your password.

Type 'mv Downloads "/Volumes/Data HD"' (change Data HD to the name of your hard disk in Finder).

Type 'ln -s "/Volumes/Data HD/Downloads" Downloads'.

Done - now your Downloads folder will still appear to be in your home directory, but it actually points onto the HDD. Obviously you can do this with other directories - it will work transparently with apps that try and look into them.

 

[MacVibe]

For me, I kept my home directory on the SSD and just symbolic linked the stuff I wanted on the hard drive instead. For example, I wanted my Downloads folder to be on the hard drive - but still appear in my home directory.

Open Terminal.

Type 'sudo su' and enter your password.

Type 'mv Downloads "/Volumes/Data HD"' (change Data HD to the name of your hard disk in Finder).

Type 'ln -s "/Volumes/Data HD/Downloads" Downloads'.

Done - now your Downloads folder will still appear to be in your home directory, but it actually points onto the HDD. Obviously you can do this with other directories - it will work transparently with apps that try and look into them.

What is your backup strategy for this setup? If you use time machine is it smart enough to back up the stuff that your links link to? Using time machine on both drives shouldn't be much trouble, but what about when it comes time to restore data after a drive crash?

 

[Norne]

What would be the folders usually symlinked?

I wanted my Downloads folder to be on the hard drive - but still appear in my home directory.

Open Terminal.

Type 'sudo su' and enter your password.

Type 'mv Downloads "/Volumes/Data HD"' (change Data HD to the name of your hard disk in Finder).

Type 'ln -s "/Volumes/Data HD/Downloads" Downloads'.

Done - now your Downloads folder will still appear to be in your home directory, but it actually points onto the HDD.

Here is the barebone guide I've been searching for, I believe.

Two questions bother me still, though:
1) Will this work with every subfolder of my HOME? The typical scenario, at least this is my situation, is that the iMac is a family machine. I'm admin priveleged user, thus I haven't dared following the 'ditto' recipe outlined by TUAW and OWC that moves the home folder to the SSD.

2) I ran into what I believe was a locale glitch by the Steam client: I have my Civilization license in my Steam account. I also use Norwegian language Snow Leopard, so my apps folder is named 'programmer'-but Steam put the Civ V icon into a folder named 'applications'. Does anyone else using non-english localizations run into this kind of hiccups, and I wonder if things will go bad if I split data between ssd and hdd in the way OP alludes to?

As you can probably tell, I'm not terribly experienced with Mac OS X. I'm not afraid of command line heroism in cases like this, where the logic behind seems obvious, though.

 

[Pipper99]

I followed the directions on this link, and it worked great for me: http://jcsenterprises.com/Japamacs_Page/Blog/00E03B83-1ADA-406E-A940-396D39F598EA.html

Mine is not a family machine, so I don't know how that would be impacted. I haven't tried backing up yet (I just got the iMac last Friday).