Composer With Question

Q: Users folder on External Hard Drive, can't modify anything when computer wakes from sleep?

I have my users folder on an external 6TB WD My Book Hard Drive. Every once and awhile, when I wake my computer from sleep in the morning, I can't modify anything. Simply trying to create a new folder on the desktop pops up the error message:

 

"The operation can't be completed.

An unexpected error occurred (error code -50)."

 

Restarting my computer fixes the problem temporarily. I assume the problem is linked to having my users folder on an External Hard Drive, which in itself sounds risky, but I know it's been done before. Can anyone give an explanation to this?

Mac Pro, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Feb 28, 2016 9:14 AM

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Q: Users folder on External Hard Drive, can't modify anything when computer wakes from sleep?

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  • by pinkstones,

    pinkstones pinkstones Feb 28, 2016 9:32 AM in response to Composer With Question
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    Feb 28, 2016 9:32 AM in response to Composer With Question

    Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think you should have your Users folder on an external drive.  I know you can have your entire system boot from an external drive, and you can have folders like Pictures, Music, Documents, and Video on an external drive, but I don't think I've seen anyone here say that putting that particular folder on an external drive was safe. 

  • by Barney-15E,

    Barney-15E Barney-15E Feb 28, 2016 10:47 AM in response to Composer With Question
    Level 9 (50,072 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 28, 2016 10:47 AM in response to Composer With Question

    If you linked your /Users folder, or individual home folders to that drive, that may be the problem. When the computer wakes faster than the drive, you might have issues. You could set the OS to not purity drives to sleep.

     

    If you modified the user home folder location in Users & Groups, it still may be related to the drive sleeping. But, that is not something I've spent time using, so I don't know

     

    How is the drive connected?

  • by Composer With Question,

    Composer With Question Composer With Question Feb 28, 2016 2:43 PM in response to pinkstones
    Level 1 (4 points)
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    Feb 28, 2016 2:43 PM in response to pinkstones

    I see. I actually moved the users folder to an external drive originally as a way to easily consolidate iTunes/Photos/etc. files. What would be the best way to still keep these folders (Pictures, Music, Documents, Video, etc.) functioning  on the external drive, yet still have the users folder be on my main computer drive?

  • by pinkstones,

    pinkstones pinkstones Feb 28, 2016 2:57 PM in response to Composer With Question
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    Feb 28, 2016 2:57 PM in response to Composer With Question

    Composer With Question wrote:

     

    I see. I actually moved the users folder to an external drive originally as a way to easily consolidate iTunes/Photos/etc. files. What would be the best way to still keep these folders (Pictures, Music, Documents, Video, etc.) functioning  on the external drive, yet still have the users folder be on my main computer drive?

     

    Just copy those specific folders and move them to the external drive.  That way you have a copy on your internal drive and one on your external drive.

  • by notcloudy,

    notcloudy notcloudy Feb 28, 2016 3:19 PM in response to Composer With Question
    Level 4 (1,190 points)
    Desktops
    Feb 28, 2016 3:19 PM in response to Composer With Question

    Composer With Question wrote:

     

    I have my users folder on an external 6TB WD My Book Hard Drive. Every once and awhile, when I wake my computer from sleep in the morning, I can't modify anything. Simply trying to create a new folder on the desktop pops up the error message:

     

    "The operation can't be completed.

    An unexpected error occurred (error code -50)."

     

    Restarting my computer fixes the problem temporarily. I assume the problem is linked to having my users folder on an External Hard Drive, which in itself sounds risky, but I know it's been done before. Can anyone give an explanation to this?

     

    With Tiger and above instead of at midnight or shortly there after - some unix housekeeping jobs are run when you wake your system from sleep -- or I think power up. 

     

    Keep track of days that it happens as you may be encountering housekeeping.

     

    Wish on all of this Apple would have decent logs that in plain language let  you know what the problems are.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Feb 28, 2016 3:30 PM in response to Composer With Question
    Level 5 (7,527 points)
    Notebooks
    Feb 28, 2016 3:30 PM in response to Composer With Question

    The correct way to assign a home folder to another disk is to use the 'advanced' section of the user preferences.

    You would do this when logged in as an admin, ensure the user being modified is logged out!

     

    System Preferences > Users & groups, unlock the panel, select the user, right click (or ctrl+click) select 'Advanced options'.

    Set the 'Home Directory' to the appropriate path. Read any dialogs - it is easy to use the wrong path.

     

    Aliases or 'hard links' are not the right way to relocate the home folder.

    I don't think an external drive is a good place to keep your home folder, it would be far safer to just move your large libraries off to an external disk.

     

    See the help for moving iTunes or other app data, it is more involved than just copying files around.

    Locate and organize your iTunes media files - Apple Support

    There are user tips on this site that cover moving the libraries to other disks.

     

    Whatever you decide it is critical to avoid the external disk sleeping otherwise you will lose unsaved data.

  • by Composer With Question,

    Composer With Question Composer With Question Feb 28, 2016 5:07 PM in response to pinkstones
    Level 1 (4 points)
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    Feb 28, 2016 5:07 PM in response to pinkstones

    I'd like to have the actual files on the external drive, if possible. In other words, I don't want what I put on my external drive to just be "backup" data. This is so that if I were to travel, I can easily take the external hard drive with me and have everything.

     

    The easiest method I can think of is using alias folders (for "music", "pictures", etc.), but I suspect there's a cleaner, more efficient way to do it. Because the drive is 6TB, I find it convent just to keep everything on it, and as little on my actual computer drive as necessary.

  • by pinkstones,

    pinkstones pinkstones Feb 29, 2016 3:33 AM in response to Composer With Question
    Level 5 (4,209 points)
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    Feb 29, 2016 3:33 AM in response to Composer With Question

    Then just do what I did — copy the files to your external hard drive, then delete the originals from your computer.  I don't have any of my music files, pictures, or video files on my internal drive.  They're all on external drives.  That keeps my internal drive from getting cluttered.  When I want to listen to a song or edit a picture, I plug in my main external drive (I also have a few flash drives), and open those files from there.

  • by Grant Lenahan,

    Grant Lenahan Grant Lenahan Feb 29, 2016 6:00 AM in response to Barney-15E
    Level 4 (1,468 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 29, 2016 6:00 AM in response to Barney-15E

    "not purity drives"...

    Dont you love auto-correct? :-)

  • by Grant Lenahan,

    Grant Lenahan Grant Lenahan Feb 29, 2016 6:01 AM in response to Composer With Question
    Level 4 (1,468 points)
    Mac OS X
    Feb 29, 2016 6:01 AM in response to Composer With Question

    Why not make it simple?

     

    Keep your users folder where it belongs.

     

    Put an alias within documents (or movies or....) to a folder on the external drive.

     

    Only when you need to go there will you jump to the external drive.

     

    Grant

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Feb 29, 2016 9:21 AM in response to Composer With Question
    Level 5 (7,527 points)
    Notebooks
    Feb 29, 2016 9:21 AM in response to Composer With Question

    We understand what you would like, but it is unsupported by Apple and is likely to give you issues.

     

    USB disks can be poor at waking from sleep (or it may just be be OS X, Windows users claim USB is better), as you are already seeing - when your home folder is unavailable the OS locks up.

    At some point you will find that the changes made before sleep were not saved back to your home folder. That is data loss, hopefully the files in your home folder aren't corrupted by that failure.

     

    To minimise the amount of data you lose it is safer to keep the home folder on the internal disk. You can use the iTunes settings to point the library to the external disk.

    Photos app can also use library located on another disk.

    The OS may still complain if the disk is missing after waking & those apps are running, however you are not risking your entire home folder.

     

    I don't think aliases are the correct way to relocate the libraries or home folder contents. Aliases can fail, be overwritten or certain apps will fail to follow an alias (like shell scripts within installers). The result is seeing data written to the wrong disk. 'symlinks' are potentially better, but even those can fail and result in you writing to the internal instead of the external disk.

     

    If you have an older Mac Pro (not the black 'trashcan') it may make a lot more sense to remove the disk from the WD case & fit it internally (voiding any warranty on the WD). Otherwise I would consider switching to Thunderbolt or Firewire enclosure. USB has always been too unreliable in my experience, there have been too many times when it won't wake.

     

    Maybe you have better luck with USB but I doubt you would be here asking for help…

  • by Composer With Question,

    Composer With Question Composer With Question Feb 29, 2016 9:40 AM in response to Drew Reece
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Publishing
    Feb 29, 2016 9:40 AM in response to Drew Reece

    Good points. Although, the drive is connected via Firewire.

     

    At the moment, I'm going with the 'alias' route of placing my "music", "pictures", and "movies" folders on my external drive, and putting aliases to those folders in my home 'user's folder on the internal drive. Hopefully that's an improvement.

  • by Drew Reece,

    Drew Reece Drew Reece Feb 29, 2016 9:52 AM in response to Composer With Question
    Level 5 (7,527 points)
    Notebooks
    Feb 29, 2016 9:52 AM in response to Composer With Question

    Composer With Question wrote:

     

    Good points. Although, the drive is connected via Firewire.

    Really?

    Aren't the Firewire models setup with 2x 3TB drives in the WD case?

     

    Your data is spread over 2 disks and randomly disconnects during sleep? Good luck with that.