[Flyzone]

This is the dilemma.
On a new 80Gb hard disk with 2 partitions I installed 10.3.
The 10Gb that I dedicated to the OS are filling up very fast due to entourage database, iPhoto, iTunes etc.

The question is can I move the User folder to the second bigger partition that I'm using for the data?

Would the move kill any connection with the system? Are new accounts moved directly to the second partition?

Thanks,
fly

[Detrius]

The bottom line is that /Users must exist. You can create that as a link to a folder on another volume, though.

The other option is changing individual users' home directories by hand in Netinfo.

[Flyzone]

Will an alias or link on the OS root create any sort of login problems?

Second in doing this, will the creation of a new account create a new home directory on the second partition or on the OS root?

Originally posted by Detrius:
The bottom line is that /Users must exist. You can create that as a link to a folder on another volume, though.

The other option is changing individual users' home directories by hand in Netinfo.

[barney ntd]

If you replace /Users with a symbolic link (created in the terminal with ln -s) to another disk which contains all your users' home directories, then repair disk permissions, everything will work fine. I have used this setup since 10.0, and never had any trouble with it.

Assuming you have already moved all files from the Users folder to your users disk (also called Users) the terminal commands are:

cd /
sudo rm -R Users
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Users

Barney.

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by barney ntd:
If you replace /Users with a symbolic link (created in the terminal with ln -s) to another disk which contains all your users' home directories, then repair disk permissions, everything will work fine. I have used this setup since 10.0, and never had any trouble with it.

Assuming you have already moved all files from the Users folder to your users disk (also called Users) the terminal commands are:

cd /
sudo rm -R Users
sudo ln -s /Volumes/Users

Barney.

Ditto.
Do not use an alias created in the Finder!

You have to use ln -s.

[chabig]

You've discovered the reason why partitioning sucks.

But, you can make room by simply moving the iTunes and iPhoto stuff onto the data partition and leaving the other User stuff alone if you want to.

iTunes has a preference setting to point to its library. And there is a third party iPhoto library manager that will do the same thing.

Chris

[Flyzone]

Originally posted by chabig:
You've discovered the reason why partitioning sucks.

But, you can make room by simply moving the iTunes and iPhoto stuff onto the data partition and leaving the other User stuff alone if you want to.

iTunes has a preference setting to point to its library. And there is a third party iPhoto library manager that will do the same thing.

Chris

That's what I did. The only library that still take a lot of space is the Entourage database. I'm reading in some website that moving that to another partition can create problems.

Now I'm planning to do a similar set-up on an xserve. 10 Gb OS X server partition and the rest od 250 Gb just for data. Do u think is a good solution?
A second HD will be on RAID 1.

[chabig]

There have been lots of discussions about the pros and cons of partitioning. It used to be required because of hardware and/or software limitations. Now it's just a matter of personal preference. Personally I don't do it. Others do. Either way, your system should work just fine.

Chris

[khufuu]

Originally posted by Flyzone:
This is the dilemma.
On a new 80Gb hard disk with 2 partitions I installed 10.3.
The 10Gb that I dedicated to the OS are filling up very fast due to entourage database, iPhoto, iTunes etc.

The question is can I move the User folder to the second bigger partition that I'm using for the data?

Would the move kill any connection with the system? Are new accounts moved directly to the second partition?

Thanks,
fly

1. Create a /users on the other 'non-system' partition.

2. Copy all your directories under your current /users to the new /users.

3. Delete all directories under your current /users except for the account that OSX shows as the 'My Account' under Accounts in System Preferences. (What you end up with then is a duplicate of this account under both the old and the new /users.)

4. Go into NetInfo Manager and update each applicable account under your current /users so that the 'home' attribute is pointing to your new /users directory. (Note: only change the accounts that people log in to. Don't change the 'system' type accounts.)

5. Logout and log back in.

6. Start a terminal session and then do a pwd command. It should show that you are now logged into the new /users directory in the non-system partition.

7. Clean out the old /users directory of all the extra data you had stored there to free up disk space.

This is what I've been doing since 10.1 and have gone through 10.2 and 10.3 upgrades without having to affect my data in my non-system partition.

In my case: my 'home' account is called khufuu and it resides on the system partition along with all the other mac osx stuff. On my non-system partition, I have my real khufuu home directory where all my data resides. Whenever I do an upgrade to the os, I make sure to re-create my 'home' account as khufuu and then when everything's done, I just go into netinfo manager and change the khufuu home attribute to the location of my real khufuu home account.

Hope this makes sense. Good luck.

[CharlesS]

Can't you change your user's home directory path in NetInfo Manager without making a symlink?

[madmacgames]

just for future reference here is a good tutorial on what IMO is the best way to move the /Users to a different partition (symbolic link method):
http://www.bombich.com/mactips/homedir.html

I had this setup running for about 3 months with no problems other than I was unable to update Office past 10.1.2 or else Word would crash.

In the end, I ended up going back to a single partition because I had partitioned at 1st for backup reasons and if I needed to do a clean install of the OS, I could save my data easily (being a windows switcher, this is how windows is typically recommended to be setup; a system partition and a data partition); however at the time I failed to realize that unlike windows, OS X can do a clean install and save your data, and I also failed to realize that all important info I might want to backup would more than likely be in /Users, so I can just backup that folder (whereas with windows, your important info/data is probably scattered between several root folders). Like you, I also was running out of space on my OS X partition (not because of /Users though as it was on a different partition). So I decided to backup my Users partition and then wiped the drive and just went with 1 partition.

One other reason I switched back to 1 partition was because unlike windows, there doesn't seem to be any software to manage partitions on the fly like there is with windows (Partition Magic). For example a few times on windows my system partition was running close to being full, but I could just use Partition Magic to make it a little bigger, perhaps merge it with another one, split a large partition in 2 if I wanted to setup a dual boot at a later date, etc, etc. Whereas in OS X you have to decide what size your partitions will be and how many at the very beginning, and if you miscalculate or change your mind later, tough luck, you have to reformat. So to save myself the inevitability of the system OS becoming filled, I just went back to a single partition.

Sorry for being long winded, but I thought I'd share my experiences of partitioning and OS X coming from a windows background, where partitioning is very very common (I would go so far to say that probably more windows machines are partitioned into 2 or more partitions than not. A few years ago when my sister got a gateway, it came pre-partitioned. Dunno if that is still the case but very well could be).

[khufuu]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Can't you change your user's home directory path in NetInfo Manager without making a symlink?

Yes. I do it all the time.

[khufuu]

Originally posted by madmacgames:
just for future reference here is a good tutorial on what IMO is the best way to move the /Users to a different partition (symbolic link method):
http://www.bombich.com/mactips/homedir.html

I'm sure that this is the link that I had originally used when I did mine. Glad someone found it.

The niutil command is just the command line equivalent of using the NetInfo Manager.

[Edit: As long as you don't delete the /users directory on the system partition, there is no need for a symlink. Updating the netinfo database will work just fine.]

[barney ntd]

The point of the symlink method is that you only have to do it once, however many users you have. The link to bombich gives a "belt and braces" method, using both symlink and netinfo, but this is unnecessary: once you have the symlink, everything works fine. You can create new users with the standard "Accounts" pref panel and they are created in the right place.

Partitioning may be pointless these days, but if you have more than one disk it makes a lot of sense to have root on one and Users on the other.

Barney.

[Graymalkin]

I've used the symlink method for putting home directories on an AFP share and external drives. I find it much simpler than changing the locations via NetInfo. It's transparent as far as the users and most programs are concerned.

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by chabig:
You've discovered the reason why partitioning sucks.

But, you can make room by simply moving the iTunes and iPhoto stuff onto the data partition and leaving the other User stuff alone if you want to.

iTunes has a preference setting to point to its library. And there is a third party iPhoto library manager that will do the same thing.

Chris

No, partitioning doesn't suck since you got the power of Unix. If you have tons of user files, just create a User partition and mount it as /User during startup. There's no way apps in OS X can tell the difference. Works great for my Music library (I chose the symlink variant).

You're still in the pre-OS X world

[OreoCookie]

Originally posted by Graymalkin:
I've used the symlink method for putting home directories on an AFP share and external drives. I find it much simpler than changing the locations via NetInfo. It's transparent as far as the users and most programs are concerned.

Ditto.
Or mounting it a partition as /Users. No need to go through all these steps.