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SSD setup help!!!!

T

Tin88

macrumors member
Original poster
May 19, 2011
38
0
Michigan
Im trying to setup my SSD and make it a boot drive.. Do i want to move over the User Folder???
 
I just installed a Vertex 3 in the main bay of my 2011 15" MBP and swapped out the optical drive for the stock 750GB HD.

I kept my user directory on my SSD. I think this is a better idea, rather than moving the user folder because the MBP will constantly be accessing it during use. Not moving it will be better for performance and won't cut down on battery life to keep the HDD from being accessed all the time.

If I were you, just move over media (i.e. movies, pictures, itunes library) to the HDD and keep everything else on the SSD.
 
Yea I want all my apps and OS on the SSD but I can't clone it all I have a 120gb ssd and like 300GB out of 500gb used on the HD its like 175gb of movies and ****.
 
Copy your home folder (the house icon folder) from the SSD onto the HD. The HD wont have the house icon yet. Go to system prefs and into accounts.

Click on the lock, unlock it. Control-click your account, go to advance settings.

Go to home directory, and browse the folder you just copied onto the HD. This should turn it into the home icon after reboot.

Edit: I failed reading your original post. I thought you were asking how to move your home folder =/

Ill just leave those instructions there for anybody to look back at...
 
I wanted the same thing as you, and you're doing it right. I have the Vertex 3 + 750GB HDD in an optibay and I moved my home folder to the HDD - like you said it has nothing to do with the Applications. It works fine too - all my music, movies, and docs are on the HDD, and all Apps stay on the SSD.

I say move it and be done.
 
Tin88 said:
Wouldnt i want to move my home folder tho? I want OSX and applications on the SSD and this link is tellin me the same thing... (http://chris.pirillo.com/how-to-move-the-home-folder-in-os-x-and-why/) In my Home Folder(house icon) the Applications folder has nothing in it. Do i have to select the Applications folder in the main Macintosh HD?? Also would i want to clone the System folder? Thanks
Click to expand...

The application folder inside the home folder is not your actual application library. What I did was:

Clone my HD with carbon Copy
Using that clone, I transferred all the files I wanted to the SSD
Set the SSD as boot drive
When I boot into the SSD, I had to make a new account.
Using disk utility, I transfered the users files to the SSD
I now had my old account on the SSD (has all my bookmarks, widgets etc)
Went into my normal account (now on the SSD), and into system prefs -> accounts
Deleted the newly created account made on the SSD
Moved the home folder using the above intructions
Reboot, and done!
 
What I would do is take all your music, movies (basically all your big files) and put them on an external disk. Delete them off your HD. If you have moved enough stuff then you should be able to clone your HD to the SSD. After that you have your boot disk. Format your HD and then move your music, movies etc back to your storage disk.
 
Sounds more complicated than it should be.

Can't you move all your data from your home folders to your storage drive, keep the home folder as is on the ssd? That is what I am doing.
 
Theoretically its faster to keep the home folder on SSD, then put your folders containing larger files onto the hdd. This will keep your library, which is accessed often by the OS, on hut SSD. This has a speed advantage. It'll also cut down on the OS needing to access the hdd, so it should spin up less often, saving you some battery juice. I used this handy blog post to redirect the movie, music, pictures, etc., folders to the secondary hdd.
 
Last edited:
bozz2006 said:
Theoretically its faster to keep the home folder on SSD, then put your folders containing larger files onto the hdd. This will keep your library, which is accessed often by the OS, on hut SSD. This has a speed advantage. It'll also cut down on the OS needing to access the hdd, so it should spin up less often, saving you some battery juice. I used this handy blog post to redirect the movie, music, pictures, etc., folders to the secondary hdd.
Click to expand...

agree 100%

i left my home folder, and moved all old docs/movies/music to my optibay stock 7200 hdd

i have recent docs on SSD, also moved aperture and other folders, cloned to optibay hdd, and also the downloads folder.

have 43gb for os +apps+ active docs
320gb for everything else
 
peapody said:
Sounds more complicated than it should be.

Can't you move all your data from your home folders to your storage drive, keep the home folder as is on the ssd? That is what I am doing.
Click to expand...

Cache files go into your home folder which preferably should be on an SSD rather than an HDD.
 
On that blog link posted above, it says

The first thing you need to do is copy everything from the existing folder to the new location. That’s pretty easy - you can do that with Finder.
Click to expand...

Does that mean I should copy my movies folder from my SSD onto my HDD? But I have 100GB of movies on my HDD already, making the copying impossible.

And it says

Next, we create a symbolic link for the original folder to the new target. This can be done with the following command:


ln -s /Volumes/DataVol/Documents ~/Documents


Note that in the above replace the ‘DataVol’ with your target volume.
Click to expand...

What is DataVol? How do I find the path link for a folder such as movies for the HDD
 
I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my apps, User/Home folder and System folder. But when i go to set the Startup disk my SSD is not listed. Please help what do i have to do??
 
Tin88 said:
I used Carbon Copy Cloner to clone my apps, User/Home folder and System folder. But when i go to set the Startup disk my SSD is not listed. Please help what do i have to do??
Click to expand...

Does the SSD have OSX installed onto it?
 
I didn't install OSX to the SSD, i thought it should have been part of the Cloned files....
 
Tin88 said:
I didn't install OSX to the SSD, i thought it should have been part of the Cloned files....
Click to expand...

Did you clone the OSX part onto it? I dont know what exact files they are. I just cloned everything except by large files, which I deselected.
 
To simplify things I would have installed osx onto the ssd, and kept the home folder there. That way you have the speed of the apps launching from the ssd etc.

Move all data to hdd, which you will access only once in a while.
 
I cloned Library User/Home, System and Applications all to the SSD. Where would OSX be then? Am i just better off using the external Drive to install
 
peapody said:
To simplify things I would have installed osx onto the ssd, and kept the home folder there. That way you have the speed of the apps launching from the ssd etc.

Move all data to hdd, which you will access only once in a while.
Click to expand...

But the problem I ran into was, with the homefolder on the SSD, everything automatically saves to the SSD

I dont want to have to browse for the right folder in my HD every time I save
 
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