Moving User & Groups folders from Boot Volume to Addition Drive

Question

Moving User & Groups folders from Boot Volume to Addition Drive

My boot volume has become full and I'm not able to download any updates or apps or anything like that. I would like to move the Users and Groups folders from the boot volume to the second hard drive in my Mac Mini. I need to do this without any disruption or data loss.

I've thought a way around this is to copy those two folders to the second drive and make it available as a Share Point in the server app but then I get stuck as to how to get all the user accounts to point the \seconddrive\users rather than \root\users?

Any help with this would be greatly appreaciated!

Mac mini Server (Mid 2011), OS X Server

Posted on Sep 2, 2013 3:21 AM

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Answer 1

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Sep 2, 2013 3:46 AM in response to Newham Bridge Administrator

Don't do that.

A better way is to move large data folders or files, for example all movie files or music. Move the whole music/movie Library (with iTunes), normally frees up a large portion of disk space.

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Answer 2

Sep 2, 2013 4:47 AM in response to Lexiepex

Thanks for that tip but that isn't an option. It's a server at school and so the iTunes library is empty. The boot drive is full from systems files, user and group folders.

Shift the user and group data to the second drive would be very convenient.

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Answer 3

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Sep 2, 2013 5:08 AM in response to Newham Bridge Administrator

It leads often to problems to have the user account on another disk as the OS disk...

I am not familiar with this type of problem when there are a lot of user accounts..

Maybe some of the "professors come in here.

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Answer 4

Sep 2, 2013 5:38 AM in response to Lexiepex

Thanks for your help. I would move either the users or the groups. Moving either would give me enough free space to maintain the network.

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Answer 5

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Sep 2, 2013 5:52 AM in response to Newham Bridge Administrator

What is your confuguration? dual 750GB harddrive, or the ssd combinations? Maybe there is a cheap solution by adding hardware storage space, instead of maybe destabilize the system by moving users and/or groups....

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Answer 6

Sep 2, 2013 6:03 AM in response to Lexiepex

It's dual 500gb drives. The way that I see it is that there's nothing else to move. The system files need to remain on the boot volume leaving the user folders and the group folders. Something's got to be shifted because I've got a full 500gb drive and a nearly empty 500gb drive waiting to be used.

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Answer 7

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Sep 2, 2013 6:25 AM in response to Newham Bridge Administrator

AFAIK the max configuration is 2 x 750GB, I have no idea what it cost to upgrade. Must be not very expensive and is a rather simple operration: clone to the new disks (CarbonCopyCloner) and then switch.

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Answer 8

Sep 2, 2013 6:32 AM in response to Lexiepex

Thanks but doesn't just shift my problem a few months down the line? I work in a school and our staff and chidren are constatly creating new stuff.

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Answer 9

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Sep 2, 2013 7:11 AM in response to Newham Bridge Administrator

Yes, but must they not learn how to clean up their things and perhaps archive it on an external disk(s) ?

Fanning them out to another disk, has the same problem that it keeps growing, isn't it?

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Answer 10

Sep 3, 2013 12:22 AM in response to Lexiepex

Agreed but this is a primary school and so the children are very young also the staff aren't particularly computer savvy. My immediate problem is one of storage space, secondary at the moment is the education of good file management.

I'm now considering a Striped RAID Set spanning both of the 500GB drives. I'm sure that this would mean copying the entire hard drive from the Mac, formatting both and then restoring the data.

Could mean a lot of down time but should get me to where I need to be.

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Answer 11

Lexiepex

Level 6

14,108 points

Sep 3, 2013 12:37 AM in response to Newham Bridge Administrator

I hope so, but I doubt it. Be sure to have a safe backup (or two). post the result here, and maybe someone more familiar with this setting than I am will jump in.

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Answer 12

Sep 3, 2013 8:26 AM in response to Newham Bridge Administrator

Are the group and user folders used by network login accounts? If so the following is the approach I have used.

Add the second drive, format if necessary
Use Terminal.app to do the copying and the ditto command as follows

sudo ditto sourcedirectory destinationdirectory

Ditto will preserve modification dates, ownership information, etc. unlike the Finder, and by using sudo you will be able to copy files owned by different users
Using Server.app unshare the current folders on the boot drive
Using Server.app share the (new) folders on the second drive ideally using the same names as the original ones
Then tell Server.app to make the (new) user folder location available for network home directories
I would then use Workgroup Manager (if you don't already have this installed it is a free download) and make sure each user account that you want to use for network logins and network home directories is pointed to the new location
Since the files ownership is preserved and by following the above steps you have made sure the accounts know where to go for their network home directories it should all work

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Answer 13

Sep 4, 2013 12:06 AM in response to John Lockwood

Thanks for this. When I get a quiet moment I'll give this a try. Just to confirm though, are you suggesting this for both the Users and Groups folders or just the groups folders?

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Answer 14

Sep 4, 2013 1:50 AM in response to Newham Bridge Administrator

Newham Bridge Administrator wrote:

Thanks for this. When I get a quiet moment I'll give this a try. Just to confirm though, are you suggesting this for both the Users and Groups folders or just the groups folders?

Yes the process for Groups is the same except for the last bit in that it is just a normal share and does not have to be specially made available for home directories.

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