User profiles stored on NAS, so logon on two different Macs is the same

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I am new to Mac and am planning buying my first one, but eventually plan to have two Macs, shared by the whole family.
I want to set them up such that each person has their own user, but can logon on either one of the Macs and have exactly the same desktop background, any customizations, etc., so here's what I'm thinking:

If I attach a NAS (visible to both Macs), can I put the user's profile on it (like a shared drive) and it is then read from there, so that any user settings, etc. are stored there and means there's no difference where you logon?

I hope this makes sense - I'm new to Mac, but I do know UNIX and I'm guessing as long as I can put the home dir on the NAS, this should work? What about passwords - happy if worst case scenario is that passwords have to be manually changed on both Macs to keep them in sync (certainly the admin/root would have to be separate for each Mac).

Question 1: Does this sound feasible? If not, any other approach?
Question 2: If yes, any recommendations re NAS?

Thanks for any responses to guide me the right way,
Paul
 
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chas_m

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Possibly simpler solution, since OS X is not designed to store user home folders on shared drives and that would probably be a permissions nightmare anyway:

1. Set up each of the two Macs to be identical. You could simply clone the first to the second, using a program like Chronosync.

2. Chronosync also has the ability to KEEP the machines automatically in sync, so that any changes made on either machine is reflected in the same account on the other machine.

http://econtechnologies.com/chronosync
 

Slydude

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I'm sure there are ways to keep the two Macs in sync. Although I don't have a solution I don't think putting the user's home directory on the NAS is a good solution. Some of the configuration information stored in that folder would be needed before the NAS is typically accessed.

Additional complications arise if there are any delays accessing the NAS. With my Time Capsule for example I run a login script to mount my iTunes library so that it is available when iTunes launches. Sometimes access is slower than usual and the script times out. You can't have that happen when accessing the User folder.
 

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