User can't login when Home Folder on another drive

[NervousFish2]

Hi all,

So, I have two drives on my iMac. I boot from a fast SSD. But the Home Folder for my main account on the machine in on a separate, larger drive.

Every time I restart the machine, the login hangs. I get a message "cannot log in, etc", and get kicked back to the main login screen.

If I THEN login to a new Admin account I just made last night, with the Home Folder located on the SDD, I can login just fine. And I can THEN use fast user switching to switch to my main account, just fine.

But it seems like a convoluted way to have to login! Is there any way I can fix this, so I can just log right into my main account, the regular way?

Thanks,

Nick

 

[chown33]

I'd put the actual home folder on the SSD, with symlinks for all the folders therein.

It's possible that some sub-folders of ~/Library would be better stored on the SSD, but it'd be trial and error to figure out which sub-folders would be better on which drive.

If the underlying problem with the 1st login is due to the time it takes to mount (or auto-mount) the target drive, then there may be other options, such as making a launch-agent in ~/Library/LaunchAgents that mounts the drive or somehow delays login so it's not giving the problem. That's just a guess. Other guesses are that it's things like ~/Library/Preferences which aren't showing up fast enough for login's needs. So putting folders like that on the SSD would be a simple starting point.

 

[NervousFish2]

You may be right.

But allow me to try to explain the full background here. It might be helpful. It might not.

Here is my current setup:

1. Internal 128 GB NVMe drive, from old Fusion drive. This is the boot drive.

2. Internal Samsung 2TB SATA SSD. This is the Home Folder location, clearly and properly set up, using Users & Groups preferences.

Startup disk is set to current boot volume.

For a little while, I had the two drives FUSED, as one Fusion drive. But it didn't work as I wanted. What I wonder now is if creating and then breaking the Fusion Drive has created some problems. Today, if I boot into Recovery Mode, and list my drives in Terminal, I get a weird little mess of small drives.

I am not a Terminal/UNIX expert. My original goals in making a fusion of there PCIe and the SATA SSDs were to make one big drive. I was following the ideas and discussion here:

Increase Your Mac's Storage Space for Cheap! - YouTube

How to create and disable a Fusion Drive - TechRepublic

I broke the Fusion drive as its speed seemed to cap at the SATA SSD's top limits, not the NVMe drive's limits (500 to 600 read write). Whereas in an PCIe+HDD Fusion drive, you will at least sometimes get the top speeds of the PCIe drive! (like, 4x faster). So, I broke the Fusion, and decided to try to use the 128GB as the Boot Drive, and the SATA SSD as the Home Folder data drive.

Is the process you are describing the same as that noted here?

https://mattgemmell.com/using-os-x-with-an-ssd-plus-hdd-setup/

 

[Fishrrman]

The OP asks:
"Is there any way I can fix this, so I can just log right into my main account, the regular way?"

Yes, there is.

Your problem is that your boot volume (the NVMe SSD) should have all of the following on it (but do not):
- the OS (of course)
- applications
- accounts (you don't have them there)*

* Here's the catch.
If you keep large libraries of stuff (movies, music and pics) in your home folder, they won't fit onto the NVMe SSD.
So... the solution is to "leave the large libraries behind" on the internal SATA SSD. They will work just as well there as they would on the boot drive. Speed will never be an issue.
Keep the home folder "lean, mean and clean".

Do it this way, and it will SOLVE your problems.
I guarantee 99% success -- I'm that sure.

I see (reading deeper into the thread) that you have a 128gb NVMe drive and a 2tb SSD (replacing the original HDD). I re-edited some of the post above.

Again, if you follow my advice above, things will be fine.
128gb is "large enough with room to spare" for the OS, apps, and "basic" account.
Do it my way, and I think you'll be quite pleased.

 

[NervousFish2]

Again, if you follow my advice above, things will be fine.
128gb is "large enough with room to spare" for the OS, apps, and "basic" account.
Do it my way, and I think you'll be quite pleased.

awesome reply. Thanks!