Symlinks, Users Directory and Permissions.. Then subsequent problems..

[Craigrox]

Hey man, Cool guide.. (I didn't use yours or see it until now)

Yeah, I pretty much did this, but I found that it seriously messed with some hidden permissions needed for iLok authorisation and no matter what I tried to do to fix it, I had to re-install..

Like I said in my original post, It all appeared to "work" until I tried using Pro Tools which led me to believe that I may have inadvertently deleted something important that was hidden in there somewhere..

I like the idea of being able to access everything from the sidebar, which you can just drag new links to from different places also.. I think I was just aiming for perfection because I wanted the icons to be the same as what is in the sidebar already..

The curious side of me wants to see if I can make it work if I do it as the first thing after my fresh install, but I am very dubious as to the inner workings of iLok authorisation stuff and don't want to mess with it as I need to use it, as it is my bread and butter (literally and metaphorically)

Many thanks

I've been using this setup for over a year now and everything is running smoothly; installing/removing apps, updates etc, have never caused me any trouble. As this guide just points to where the files containing your data is, I haven't come across any risk in this. The only actual downside is this is only for one User at a time, can be repeated of course.

 

[PJALM]

Fine. Obviously no one listens anyhow and you still think this is a good practice so do what you want. You obviously know more about the inner workings of OS X and how the system folders effect it then me.

I still would like to see you remove that 'Data' drive you moved the user folder to and boot.

 

[Craigrox]

Fine. Obviously no one listens anyhow and you still think this is a good practice so do what you want. You obviously know more about the inner workings of OS X and how the system folders effect it then me.

I still would like to see you remove that 'Data' drive you moved the user folder to and boot.

At what point have I claimed to know more?

I stated that for over a year the setup has worked fine for myself, and if you follow the guide you will have the outcome you wanted. Furthermore, I edited my previous post to reflect your updated post. It is clear that the system will hang if it does not find the data drive :S

On a side note, my one HDD is partitioned so it's only one physical drive with 3 partitions, one for data. So not a lot would happen in my case

 

[PJALM]

Ok and how is this helping others? keeping the system folder on same drive is perfectly safe, what he wants to do is not. Not only will it cause boot issues if that other drive fails to be seen by the OS but all permissions will be totally messed up and unrecoverable leaving him with no chice but format fresh and lose everything. This is bad advice you are giving people and anything can happen and for some unknown reason that 'Data' drive could become unseen by the OS for many different reasons. Sure under perfect conditions it will be fine but since when has anything ever been perfect when it comes to hacks. Do you really want to risk other peoples data on a whim that you 'think' its fine?

 

[PJALM]

What you have done by moving the user folder has no beneficial purpose at all. You don't save space and definitely don't save ssd lifespan so why do it?

 

[Craigrox]

What you have done by moving the user folder has no beneficial purpose at all. You don't save space and definitely don't save ssd lifespan so why do it?

Simple, if I update my Windows/OS X install from Win7 to 8 or 10.7 to 10.8 - all my data will be elsewhere so all I need do is repoint the system to where that data is and it's only the system files that have changed.

If I install a bad kext and cannot recover the system, reformat and install OS X back on that partition, and my data is still safe.

For myself, it works.


Furthermore, I do not feel our little discussion is helping the OP?

 

[assumption]

On a side note, my one HDD is partitioned so it's only one physical drive with 3 partitions, one for data. So not a lot would happen in my case

Just wondering what advantages you would actually get from doing that with a partitioned drive anyways..

Anyhow, to reiterate..

I thought I was going to be ok after following a similar guide found elsewhere on the interwebs, but found that it did 'appear' to work on the surface.. But I want to help people out in the future if they use any kind of 'secure' authorisation tools and save them the headache I just went through.. I just wanted some clarification on my options and if I should do it or something similar.

Would wholeheartedly agree that it is dangerous and I don't plan on doing it on my fresh installation.

A FusionDrive is looking more appealing, but I'll just settle again for what works for me and is stable.. (Until I have some more money and some tinker time) But I won't be doing that for a while or on my 'Work/Studio' machine..

Many thanks

 

[Craigrox]

Just wondering what advantages you would actually get from doing that with a partitioned drive anyways..

Anyhow, to reiterate..

I thought I was going to be ok after following a similar guide found elsewhere on the interwebs, but found that it did 'appear' to work on the surface.. But I want to help people out in the future if they use any kind of 'secure' authorisation tools and save them the headache I just went through.. I just wanted some clarification on my options and if I should do it or something similar.

Would wholeheartedly agree that it is dangerous and I don't plan on doing it on my fresh installation.

A FusionDrive is looking more appealing, but I'll just settle again for what works for me and is stable.. (Until I have some more money and some tinker time) But I won't be doing that for a while or on my 'Work/Studio' machine..

Many thanks

Please see my last post for the advantages it offers me personally

I would like to apologise for my comments on your thread and wish you all the best on your fresh install!

 

[PJALM]

I played ith a FusionDrive setup and was not impressed at all. Very difficult to setup for a novice and you lose the full speed of your SSD. Sure your HDD now seems faster but your SSD is much slower and you also add the issues of updates and boot.plist changes etc. If you need to change some boot setting its not as easy as going to the /Extra folder anymore to edit your files and again you risk your OS and data to a drive failure. Things happen so its not wise to add additional risk.

 

[assumption]

All good man, thanks for your input

Yeah, I guess I thought it may have been beneficial for me also.. But have found out the hard way it wasn't

Luckily I have many drives with my "important" data on.. (I've data wrangled for a couple of feature films and am very anal about keeping important things "safe") So I didn't really lose anything vaguely important other than personal iTunes and iPhoto libraries on my SSD.. Everything else I have back up and backed up and backed up.. So all good on that front..

Cheers guys