moving system files to a second HDD

"I am aware of that, but if you read his post he wants to have the OS on one drive and the stored files on another... why would u do a new install when you can clone and delete/transfer files... you seem to be confusing the question".
I know, but it is asking for problems if you do it otherwise and put system files on the separate disk.

I've tried what he wants to do and it works, sort of, partially. What I ended up having to do is what LexS said in post #17. Not all my applications were happy when I tired to put my home folder on the second drive, so I moved it back to the boot drive and then moved the big space hogs to the second drive. Works pretty well now. The problems with the home folder on the second drive only was that some applications assume that your "~" folder will always be on the boot drive, even if that is not an assumption they should make. Calibre was one of the offenders I can remember, but not the only one. So I ended up having to create a home folder on the boot drive to satisfy those applications. But I keep it small and store most of my data on the second internal drive in the optical bay.

MacInWin said:

...The problems with the home folder on the second drive only was that some applications assume that your "~" folder will always be on the boot drive, even if that is not an assumption they should make. Calibre was one of the offenders I can remember, but not the only one. So I ended up having to create a home folder on the boot drive to satisfy those applications. But I keep it small and store most of my data on the second internal drive in the optical bay.

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you don't need to put the home folder on the second drive just use symlinks to re locate the big data folders, they're actually incredibly easy to set up just most tutorials make it sound hard (check my most recent thread to see how it's done, 3 easy steps!) once they're done i just copied the original contents back into the new folder from my backup drive.

also copying the entire home folder means you loose out on some of the SSD speeds as the library folder is on the slower drive, apparently cacheing and other things occur in there so symlinks are the best method and super easy to set up.

LexS said:

I strongly suggest to put the SSD in the main bay. And put the (old) HDD in the optical Bay.
Put System, Applications and Home Folder on the SSD. Then you can place Documents, Movies, Pictures, Music, Books, and other user data to the HDD.
LexS

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i don't need to as i have a 2010 macbook pro, both bays have SATA II, also i read the main HDD bay has some form of rubber shock absorbers to help with the SMS for regular HDDs, therefore technically putting it in the other bay puts it at more risk of damage i'm assuming, correct me if i'm wrong but that's what i've read.


to all that have helped out thanks! very helpful this forum is, the route i took:
- after backing up i copied the user folders onto and external drive
- made a bootable USB drive with mavericks
- set the SSD as the boot drive
- restart computer holding option, wiped both drives
- installed mavericks to the SSD
- copy the user folders i wanted to move onto the HDD for storage
- created Symlinks
- copied contents of folders from external drive into the new moved user folders on the regular HDD
- now i'm going through and installing everything fresh, had a lot of applications and experienced lots of CPU issues with Logic (heavy Logic user) so fresh install looked best although it will take aaaaages!

reply to post #23.
My advice is general, thus also for two sata connectors ! And I advise against symlinks too. Do not move the whole Homefolder to the second disk, and not even with symlinks. User data OK, but nothing OS. Enfin: read my post.

LexS said:

reply to post #23.
My advice is general, thus also for two sata connectors ! And I advise against symlinks too. Do not move the whole Homefolder to the second disk, and not even with symlinks. User data OK, but nothing OS. Enfin: read my post.

Click to expand...

i agree you shouldn't move the entire user folder thats why i mentioned symlinks, use them to move only the user data as that is what takes up the space. symlinks were highly recommended for this upgrade used in this way.