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I am using a SSD for my boot drive, but it's space is limited.
So I would like to relocate the iCloud Drive to one of my internal HDs, but I see no option to do this.
Let's hope Apple would make such an obvious option available.
Does anybody know if this is possible, and how to accomplish it?
Thannks.
Mac Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10.1)
How to use an SSD with your HDD If you are going to use an SSD as a boot drive together with your existing HDD as the "data" drive, here's what you can do. After installing the SSD you will need to partition and format the SSD using Disk Utility. Then, install OS X on the SSD. After OS X has been installed boot from the SSD. Use Startup Disk preferences to set the SSD as the startup volume. Open Users & Groups preferences. Click on the lock icon and authenticate. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on your user account listing in the sidebar and select Advanced Options from the context menu. You will see a field labeled "Home dir:" At the right end you will see a Change button. Click on it. In the file dialog locate the Home folder now located on the HDD (HDD/Users/account_name/.) Select the folder, click on Open button. Restart the computer as directed. When the computer boots up it will now be using the Home folder located on the HDD. Another more technical method involving the Terminal and aliases is discussed in depth here: Using OS X with an SSD plus HDD setup - Matt Gemmell. This is my preferred approach because I can select which of the Home's folders I want on the HDD and which I don't want. For example, I like to keep the Documents and Library folders on the SSD because I access their content frequently. Be sure you retain the fully bootable system on your HDD in case you ever need it. |
How to use an SSD with your HDD If you are going to use an SSD as a boot drive together with your existing HDD as the "data" drive, here's what you can do. After installing the SSD you will need to partition and format the SSD using Disk Utility. Then, install OS X on the SSD. After OS X has been installed boot from the SSD. Use Startup Disk preferences to set the SSD as the startup volume. Open Users & Groups preferences. Click on the lock icon and authenticate. CTRL- or RIGHT-click on your user account listing in the sidebar and select Advanced Options from the context menu. You will see a field labeled "Home dir:" At the right end you will see a Change button. Click on it. In the file dialog locate the Home folder now located on the HDD (HDD/Users/account_name/.) Select the folder, click on Open button. Restart the computer as directed. When the computer boots up it will now be using the Home folder located on the HDD. Another more technical method involving the Terminal and aliases is discussed in depth here: Using OS X with an SSD plus HDD setup - Matt Gemmell. This is my preferred approach because I can select which of the Home's folders I want on the HDD and which I don't want. For example, I like to keep the Documents and Library folders on the SSD because I access their content frequently. Be sure you retain the fully bootable system on your HDD in case you ever need it. |
Thanks - that makes perfect sense. I like the linking solution, as it definitely faster to keep parts of my Home directory on the SSD.
Actually it appears that iCloud Drive is a bit different than other folders.
As best I can tell, iCloud Drive uses a number of different folders in ~/Library/Mobile Documents. I suppose various different apps can store their documents in the folders that start with com~apple~. Documents that are not directly related to an app, i.e. the general iCloud Drive files, seem to be stored in com~apple~CloudDocs. If I remove this directory and place a link there to a directory on my HDD, then the file open/save dialog seems to work OK when I click on the "iCloud Drive" in the Sidebar, it immediately changes to "com~apple~CloudDocs" on the HDD - though aesthetically not pretty, it seems to work.
However, when I click on "iCloud Drive" in the Finder Sidebar, I don't see my documents at all, nor do I see them when I try to access iCloud Drive via icloud.com.
So seems that this is a bit more complicated - any ideas?
Thanks.
Interesting...
So instead a "common folder" Apple uses system variable to define at once where all the user folders will be stored.
Idk if this is the most easy way to deal with it but is good to know there is a "workaround".
I think its a big mistake from Apple.
I like to keep the system files in a SSD and other personal thing in a separated HDD.
If I need to format/erase the system, I don't touch my files.
But by the Apple way I have to redownload or re re re backup the files again because everything is in the same SSD.
Do you know if iCloud will sync the existent files from other/previous Home dir?
I mean... I used this method and had to reformat the OSX. Now I'm doing again. Its will work as expected or will resync everything?
It will resync to make sure everything is the same.
How can I change the hard drive location of the iCloud Drive?
