Why and How to Move your Users Directory

for OSX 10.5.x Leopard

Written by Rick Stephens

 

  All tasks in this guide are to be performed at the readers risk. It is possible to make your data difficult or impossible to access. Or if improperly performed you can even permanently erase your data files. No guarantee is implied or rendered, especially since we are not doing the work ourselves. Your results are dependent on your understanding and implementation of the suggestions made in this guide. We advise you do nothing until you fully read and understand the procedures in this guide and have an independent backup of your data. Mistakes happen, preventing data loss with prudent backups is one of life's keys to success.

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The User Directory:

  We have found it enhances performance and makes it easier to protect our data by separating the User Directory from the default location on the boot drive to a separate hard drive. The User Directory is the folder (named Users) that contains each user's Home Directory. I am still running the very same directory, copied from drive to drive over the years, as the one I first had on a brand new Quicksilver G4 back when OSX 10.0.4 first released in 2001. That Users Directory has traveled from computer to computer, through OS revision and OS upgrade, on and off of RAID arrays and back to individual drives many many times through those years.

  One of the best reasons to move your User Directory is it makes it simpler to backup. With everything that is 'you' contained on one volume, you know what's important and where it is. In some ways moving the User Directory makes the OS installation disposable, or at least easily replaceable, as it contains nothing that isn't installed by an OS installation disk. And moving to a new computer is much simpler - especially from a PowerPC G4 or G5 to an Intel Based MacPro where the OS installation is different - as you only move your User(s) over.

  Another great benefit, and the one nearest and dearest to the heart of a Macgurus' speed addict, is performance. The slowest component of a computer is storage. By taking advantage of the computer's ability to simultaneously access multiple drives you enhance the performance of the entire computer. Having the OS on one independent drive and the User Directory on another effectively doubles your available storage speed.

 

Applications Folder:

  I also place an Applications folder on drive 2 - right next to the Users folder. This Applications folder contains all of my personal Applications like Photoshop, Lightroom, FinalCut and anything else I have bought. I leave the applications that are installed by the OSX installer on the root drive since all updaters will look for them there. And besides, those particular apps are as disposable as the OS installation itself.

  Having your major applications on the User drive gives not only the same backup benefits but also improves enormously the performance of those applications that use large and separate data storage. Since most large photo, video or audio databases will be on their own separate drive(s) or RAID array the User drive is not in use when you are editing photos, film or audio tracks. Sticking the big application on the otherwise unused User drive gives that application 100% drive accessibility - even though that drive also contains other User data like emails and what not which will not be accessed while you are running your flagship applications. Your computer's ability to multithread is enormous so separating your data into discreet drives and RAID arrays helps your computer to utilize its storage to the maximum possible.

 

Configuring your drives:

   We have a favorite partition scheme we like to use that allows us to have everything inside the computer backed up and self contained. Lose either drive and you still have everything on the other drive - AND - gain performance by multitasking the storage accesses over 2 drives. We use the fastest outer tracks of the drive for the active OS and User Directory partitions, and we use the inner slower tracks for the backups. We run at least a daily backup of the User partition and a once weekly for the OS.

  What you need is an identical size pair of drives. In this example, and what I am using on my workstation, is 500 GB Seagate 7200.11 drives. These are the fastest current 7200 RPM drives available.

  As shown in the graphic below. We partition a 100 GB OS partition on Drive 1 and a 400 GB Users partition on Drive 2. The second backup partitions are the reverse with a 400 GB partition on drive 1 to backup the User Drive and 100 GB second partition on Drive 2 to backup the OS installation. These sizes are my choice for my computer and should be adjusted to meet your requirements. Give the OS install plenty of extra room for swap files and updates for the future. I ran out of space on what I used to think was a massive 40 GB OS partition - I am glad to have bumped that up to 100 GB on my MacPro.

 

Your Copy and Backup Application:

   Every computer at MacGurus has a licensed copy of SyncronizeProX on it to handle backup and copy duties. There are other applications available, SuperDuper, ChronoSync, Backup, and others, but we have had years of satisfactory experience with this one and can recommend it. It will make copying large complex volumes a snap, and will get the permissions correct while creating an exact duplicate. Superb at performing those timely backups, easily set up to make automatic - middle of the night backups. (if it ain't automatic, it ain't a backup!) SyncronizeProX can handle a perfect backup of your OS installation and your data files.

 

How to get started:

  No matter whether this is brand new clean computer with no data in the User Directory, a computer that has a significant amount of data in the User Directory, or you are moving in from another computer entirely and want to import the User Directory - the steps are the same.

  You will need a pair of identical sized drives installed in your Mac. Using this guide you will partition the second drive, copy and separate the data and the OS over to it, then partition the first drive and copy the data and OS installation back to it creating the configuration where we have performance and redundancy in one setup using those 2 drives.

First **Before doing anything - Backup your DATA!** Then we can move on and partition your new Users drive.

 

1) Partitioning:

   Partitioning is accomplished in Disk Utility. We want to be certain we use the faster - outer tracks of the drive for the active partition and the slower - inner tracks for the backup partition. In Disk Utility the upper partition is the outer-faster partition. In the picture below is my User drive, named 'Local', and the smaller 100 GB partition called 'BackupRoot' (since I named the OS drive 'Root)'. In your naming don't use spaces or special characters as they can give you problems later with their path names. In this screen shot the outer fast partition is called Local.

  The Disk Utility screen shot below is of a 500 GB drive partitioned into 365 GB and 100 GB partitions. I find that an ideal set up for me using 500 GB drives. Your partition sizes can be adjusted to match your needs and hard drive capacities.

 

2) Create New Users and Applications Folders:

   Now that we have the drive formatted we go to the new User Drive and create our destination folders for Users Directory and our Applications folder. Throughout this guide I will continue to call the User drive partition 'Local'.

   To create these folders open a Finder window, select the 'Local' volume and create new empty folders called 'Users' and another called 'Applications' just as shown at right.

 

3) Populate the User Directory:

  Now we are going to copy our old User Directory, and all the Home Directories it contains, into the new User folder on 'Local'. No matter where it currently exists - on the current system drive, on another computer, or on an external drive - we want to mount that drive and make a perfect copy of the contents into the new User Folder using your backup or copy utility. Using SyncronizeProX we would do it like this:

 

4) Link to new User Location:

  Leopard makes this really easy. Open System Preferences. Go to Account Preferences. Click the lock to make changes and enter your Admin Users password. Right click (or Control+Click) on the user's name that you wish to change the Home Directory path and open the Advanced Options window. Your Home Directory line will show the path:

     /Users/name

For 'name' you will see the users short name.

My short user name is ricks, so on my computer the default path is:       /Users/ricks

We are going to edit that path to read:

     /Volumes/volume name/Users/name

For 'volume name' enter the name of the drive or partition where you copied the new Users Directory.

On my computer that hard drive name is 'Local' - so on my computer the path becomes:    /Volumes/Local/Users/ricks

 

  You can also use the button and navigate to your new Home directory. Use the Navigation window to work your way to your new User folder and select your Home directory. Clicking Open will fill in the path for you. Check it to make sure the path shown matches the guidelines listed above.

  Repeat the 'resetting the path' process for each User that you are moving.

Restart to Activate.

  After a restart you will now be operating from the new location for your Home Directory. To make a quick check that it indeed is operating off the new location, do a Get Info on your Home Directory in the Finder Sidebar. It will indicate the path in the 'Where:' field under General.

5) Now to configure the System Drive:

   Copy the original Boot drive (Drive 1) to the Backup partition on Drive 2 so we can repartition Drive 1. Before doing this we need to delete the old Home Directories from Users on the Boot drive since we don't need it any longer - and it may be too large to fit in the new 100 GB Backup OS partition. It may not be absolutely necessary to delete the old Home folders if they are small enough that everything will fit on that smallish BackupRoot partition on drive 2 - but if you choose not to delete them altogether - do a Get Info on the current boot drive and make sure it will fit in BackupRoot before attempting the copy.

  Use SyncronizeProX, or another copy program that can make bootable backups, or even Disk Utility Restore, to copy the operating system off the original drive into the Backup OS partition on drive 2. You will need to have root password to enable SyncronizeProX to make the copy when it asks for a password. Disk Utility will only require your Admin password.

 

6) Reboot to the Backup OS drive:

  To reformat the original system drive we'll need to boot to a different drive. So, in System Preferences, under Startup Disk, select the BackupRoot drive and press Restart. We will partition the old boot drive from there.

 

7) DownLoad and install Symbolic Linker:

  We are going to need to make a couple Symbolic Links, which will be detailed a little later, but right now is the time to download and install an application called Symbolic Linker. Download and unpack the disk image. The read-me is decent - the short version is: drop the plugin "SymbolicLinker.plugin" into the /Library/Contextual Menu Items folder on your current boot drive 'BackupRoot' and you now have an application installed to easily create Symlinks. That application is accessed via contextual menus, simple and easy to use.

 

8) Partition Drive 1 (the original OS drive):

  In Disk Utility, select drive 1 - the original OS drive - and select the Disk Utility Partition tab. Select 2 partitions under Volume Scheme. Make the upper fast partition the boot drive, in this example I use the name 'Root'. The lower partition is going to backup the new Users drive, so name it accordingly. I use the obvious "Local Backup" for this partition name. Hit the Apply button when you have both partitions set to your liking.

 

9) Copy the OS Back to the Root drive:

   We're nearly done. On this step we again use our bootable copy application to copy the operating system back to the new digs. Nice part of all this copying is that process defragments beautifully. You will have a very clean and pristine operating system.

  **If you prefer you can install a clean fresh OS at this point. This is the time to do it if that seems appropriate. If you choose this option then you will need to relink the Users since fresh OS install will still be set to defaults. You will also need to reinstall Symbolic Linker on the fresh install since it also only resides on the BackupRoot drive.**

 

10) A Little Modification to the new Root drive:

  Before we boot to our new OS on the 'Root' drive, let's do one little change that we are blocked from doing once booted to that drive.  We are going to delete the old Users folder altogether, it no longer serves a purpose there, and replace it with a Symlink pointing to the new User directory located on Local. This is the solution for the chance that any applications go looking for 'Users' at the default location on the boot drive - regardless of the configuration we set into Preferences. When any application does that it will be redirected to the new location through the Symlink without ever knowing the difference. Pretty cool solution. One example is iTunes which likes to use the Shared folder inside the /Users directory.

  Go ahead right now and toss the old Users folder that resides on Root in the trash - and empty trash.

  Since we already have the Symlink tool (Step 7), let's use it to create a Symlink that points at your new User Directory on 'Local'. Open your Local drive and right click (or Control click) the Users folder and in the contextual menu, under More in the list of menu items will be the Make Symbolic Link command. Select that and immediately a Symlink named 'Users symlink' will appear right under your original Users folder.

  Hold down the Command key and drag the folder called 'Users Symlink' onto Root. Holding the Command key moves it as opposed to copying it if you just drag and drop the link without the Command key.

  Once the Symlink is over in Root, highlight it and edit it to simply read 'Users' instead of 'Users Symlink". Make sure you remove the space as well.

  The result of this will look like the graphic at right with folders called Applications, Library, System and a SymLink pointing to Users. These are what should be on your Root drive now.

11) Restart from Root:

  **Important!** After you have finished copying the OS to its new location on Root and placed the Users Symlink, go into System Preferences - select and boot to Root! We want to finish up while running off our primary system installation and all changes will be made from there from here on.

 

12) The New Applications Folder:

  Now that we have a second Applications folder on Local we want to add a Symlink inside that Applications folder that lets us navigate to the original Applications folder on the Root drive. This gives us access to all applications from one place, even though we have applications folders on two different drives.

  To accomplish this, go to the Root drive and right click on Applications. Then under the 'More' menu select Make Symbolic Link.

  This will have created a Symlink called "Applications Symlink". Rename this new Applications symlink to " root Applications". Insert a space at the beginning of the name - before "root". (space root space Applications) This will insure that the root Applications Symlink is located at the top of the applications list. It will look like the graphic at right after you rename it.

  Next we want to move the just created root Applications symlink from the Root drive into the new Applications folder on Local (see graphic below). To do that, open a second Finder window and open it to Local. Hold down the Command key and drag root Applications into the Applications folder on Local. Holding the Command key moves the link as opposed to copying the link should you not hold down the Command key.

  From now on install your new personal applications into the new Applications folder. As the graphic below shows: Photoshop, AJA Data Rate Calculator, SyncronizeProX, etc.

  You can either move your already installed personal applications over from the root applications folder or reinstall them as required. End result is all personally purchased applications end up stored in Local Applications folder.

  Replace the Applications folder link in the Sidebar with the one from Local. The default Sidebar Applications folder points to root Applications. Drag it out of the Sidebar and it will go poof, it is just an alias. Replace it by dragging the Applications folder from Local to the Sidebar in its place. Instantly you have a easy way to find all your Applications from the one easy to locate link.

Last step - Set up your Backups:

  Finally got there! Everything is now done except configuring your automated backups. Using SyncronizeProX we set up auto backups for the User drive Local to BackupLocal for every night at midnight or 1 AM or thereabouts. I like to have the Root backup an hour later but only once a week on friday nights. That way any changes made on the OS drive during the week get updated then, and any wrecks during the week leave the backup OS intact until friday night, just in case I need the weekend to fix something.

  My apologies for the length of this guide. And thanks for sticking with me to the end. If you have any comments, questions or suggestions please feel free to email me. I am always happy for the feedback. I made assumptions in quite a few places that the reader has some OSX operating knowledge. While that may not always be true, the problem assuming the opposite makes for a book length guide. My apologies again if I missed something or phrased something that makes this difficult to follow.

 

Enjoy the speed!

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