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What folders *have* to be on boot drive?

rockinrocker

rockinrocker

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Aug 21, 2006
1,323
4
So I'm going to add a SSD for booting and apps and I'm trying to figure out what capacity I need....

So which folders really *have* to be on the boot drive and which can I move to the secondary data drive?

Need:
System
Applications

What about:
Library
Users
Any others?

I'm mainly wondering if moving the Library folder will break anything? Looks like there's a lot of apps that have folders in there. It's ~40 gig so wouldn't be a big deal to leave on boot drive, but would like to put on secondary if possible...

And my main user folder is ~400 gig, so I'm hoping moving that won't be a problem....

Thanks
 
Library is quite important too and not easily moved.
Users should stay where it is too, but you can move your home folder/directory in some ways depending on your Mac OS X version. Look for a guide or three.
And just copying via Finder WILL NOT SUFFICE.
And there are more folders on your root level than you can see*.

A 256 GB SSD should suffice for most needs, and the optibay route is a good way to get more storage space.


*
MR2ss_2013_08_25_pA1_rootdirectory.png
 
Thanks for the response. (Running 10.8)

simsaladimbamba said:
Look for a guide or three.
And just copying via Finder WILL NOT SUFFICE.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I definitely wasn't planning on doing that. Though I'm still trying to figure out the best way (don't want to do a fresh install if I can avoid it). Maybe from a fresh Time Machine backup that excludes all the unnecessary stuff?
The only guides I can find are for doing a fresh install....

simsaladimbamba said:
Users should stay where it is too, but you can move your home folder/directory
Click to expand...

What about using an alias?

simsaladimbamba said:
A 256 GB SSD should suffice for most needs, and the optibay route is a good way to get more storage space.
Click to expand...

Yup, that's where I'm planning on putting it. And that should be about the right size, though there's a bunch of audio related stuff (samples mostly) that I'm hoping to put on there, so keeping everything else to a minimum would be a help.
 
How about making a Fusion Drive with your new SSD and HDD?

That way, you get the speed of the SSD, without the tedious splitting stuff up manually.
 
I would avoid removing any folders from the root level. Obviously they're there for a reason and are used by the OS. When in doubt leave it alone.
 
MacConfucius say:
He who plays with root level folders, will end up with no roots and only dirt in the end...
 
Fishrrman said:
MacConfucius say:
He who plays with root level folders, will end up with no roots and only dirt in the end...
Click to expand...
Ah yes, the age-ed wisdom of MacConfuscius....

Yeah, leave root level stuff, understood.

I just need to figure out what to do about my ~400 gig home folder....

Using a SSD for booting is so common anymore, I can't believe I'm the first one to wonder about this?

What about using aliases for the folders in my home folder?
 
Don't mess with anything except the content in your home folder. First, because that is where the bulk of the data is located, it's all your files, secondly because doing so may lead to weird system failures, unless you really know what you are doing, in which case you would not be asking here.

Also, in your home folder the likely space culprits are, Movies/Music/Photos so I would consider moving only these folders because moving your entire home folder means you will not gain anything from the SSD when accessing your files. Of the categories Movies/Music/Photos, Photos are what likely will benefit the most from being located on the SSD imo, because movies and music are streaming, while a photo needs to be loaded in it's entirety before it can be shown.

----------
rockinrocker said:
Using a SSD for booting is so common anymore, I can't believe I'm the first one to wonder about this?

What about using aliases for the folders in my home folder?
Click to expand...

Aliases may work, the benefits are that they remain if you disconnect the second drive where your home folder is located. On the other hand, you will not be able to use your computer (at least not as you) without a home folder so the point may be moot. You can create a symlink with ln -s in Terminal, I have never done this with the home folder on OS X though, but it should work in theory afaik.
 
subsonix said:
Don't mess with anything except the content in your home folder.
Click to expand...
Yes! I get it! Leave all of that stuff! :D
subsonix said:
Also, in your home folder the likely space culprits are, Movies/Music/Photos
Click to expand...
Yes, that's correct. But any one of the three of them will mostly fill up a ~240 gig drive. I'll be happy if I can just get the quick boots and app launches that would come from a SSD.
subsonix said:
On the other hand, you will not be able to use your computer (at least not as you) without a home folder so the point may be moot.
Click to expand...
Just to clarify, I was wondering about using aliases for the folders *inside* the home folder, rather than the home folder itself.
subsonix said:
You can create a symlink with ln -s in Terminal, I have never done this with the home folder on OS X though, but it should work in theory afaik.
Click to expand...
Does this look like a good walk through on how to do that?
http://gigaom.com/2011/04/27/how-to-create-and-use-symlinks-on-a-mac/

Thanks for the response.

----------

Also just found this:
https://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/10433/symboliclinker
 
subsonix said:
You can create a symlink with ln -s in Terminal, I have never done this with the home folder on OS X though, but it should work in theory afaik.
Click to expand...

Never tried that so who knows if it will work with the home folder I have symbolically linked other folders under the Music, Photos and Downloads to get quick access to them and they not being on my SSD. You can move your entire home onto different drive by going into the Users & Groups in System Preferences using the Advanced option to set the new location where you copied your entire home directory to. Then you reboot once you have made the change open finder to confirm you see the house icon on the new directory you have set. If you do it has worked you must then delete the old standard directory or you will end up with files still being saved to the old if it is still present.

Edit:

rockinrocker said:
Does this look like a good walk through on how to do that?
http://gigaom.com/2011/04/27/how-to-create-and-use-symlinks-on-a-mac/
Click to expand...

Looks reasonable but just do like I have done put symbolic link to directory under them system folders to the location you want your data stored saves messing with system ones if anything goes wrong.
 
Last edited:
MacUser2525 said:
You can move your entire home onto different drive by going into the Users & Groups in System Preferences
Click to expand...
I was thinking I'd rather not do that so I could pick and choose which folders would be on which drive, but that does sound a lot easier....
 
rockinrocker said:
I was thinking I'd rather not do that so I could pick and choose which folders would be on which drive, but that does sound a lot easier....
Click to expand...

It is easier if you want everything to still go to the default locations, if however you want to control which drive the various files go to then the symbolic links under the main directories pointing to the locations you want things saved can be the idea.

Edit: Oh and for iTunes you can go into its preferences and set your library location to any you wish to use and that will be used instead of your SSD by default.
 
Last edited:
MacUser2525 said:
Edit: Oh and for iTunes you can go into its preferences and set your library location to any you wish to use and that will be used instead of your SSD by default.
Click to expand...
Right, and I may end up doing that, but my video and photo folders are too large as well.

I'd probably just go ahead and to the symlinks, except I have zero experience with the terminal and am a little leery of using it.
Though that plug in sounds like an effective alternative....

Thanks for the responses.
 
rockinrocker said:
Right, and I may end up doing that, but my video and photo folders are too large as well.

I'd probably just go ahead and to the symlinks, except I have zero experience with the terminal and am a little leery of using it.
Though that plug in sounds like an effective alternative....

Thanks for the responses.
Click to expand...

It is not that hard to do and is easily checked to see if it worked.

Code: 
MacUser2525:~$ ls -l ~/Downloads/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  2 MacUser2525  admin    68B 28 Aug  2012 incomplete/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15:13:47
MacUser2525:~$ ln -s /Volumes/Sea_To_Do/Downloads ~/Downloads/New_Folder
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 15:15:28
MacUser2525:~$ ls -l ~/Downloads/
total 8
lrwxr-xr-x  1 MacUser2525  admin    28B 26 Aug 15:15 New_Folder@ -> /Volumes/Sea_To_Do/Downloads
drwxr-xr-x  2 MacUser2525  admin    68B 28 Aug  2012 incomplete/

Here you can see I created New_Folder linked to my Downloads folder on spare drive I have set in every program I use. Now anything I save to the ~/Downloads/New_Folder will end up where I want it in /Volumes/Sea_To_Do/Downloads.
 
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