I have an imac 27 inch late 2009 edition. I am planning on buying an ssd and replacing the optical drive with the ssd and make the nssd my primary boot drive. I would like to know how to do this and how to make the current hdd inside it to act as a storage where all the files are saved.
Thank you in advanced
iMac, OS X El Capitan (10.11), late 2009
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. |
Hi Kappy,
I'm using the "Matt Gemmell" method and have chosen to move all user folders, minus Desktop and Library, to the secondary HDD. My primary (standard) user (UserA) can access files on the HDD just fine, but other users cannot. On my HDD's root folder, I have a folder for each user and in there folders for Documents, Downloads, Music, etc.
This is my process (UserB is a standard user not on sudoers list. all commands are executed from an Admin account):
1) delete Documents folder of UserB on the SSD sudo rm -rf /Users/UserB/Documents
2) create symlink sudo ln -s /Volumes/HDD/UserB/Documents /Users/UserB/Documents
3) set ownership for UserB sudo chown -R /Volumes/HDD/UserB/
4) set permissions for UserB sudo chmod -R 755 /Volumes/HDD/UserB
My problem: when logged in as UserB, I can't create/delete folders under Documents without being prompted for Admin credentials.
The HDD volume itself has permissions as 777 (owner is UserA:staff). The problem persists even when giving ownership to UserB as a troubleshooting method.
Also tried the "Ignore ownership on this volume" when viewing HDD's Get Info, without success.
Any ideas where to start troubleshooting? I'm fresh out of ideas.
You have incorrect privileges on the drives. They should be:
Owner = system with r/w
Group = admin or wheel with ro
Everyone = everyone with ro
Open the Terminal in your Utilities folder and enter the following at the prompt:
sudo chown root:wheel [drag the drive into the Terminal window]
Press RETURN. Enter your admin password when requested. It will not echo into the window.
Hi Kappy, thanks for the quick reply!
I tried to change the owner of the HDD to root:wheel without success. Can you tell me what's wrong via the terminal outputs below?
ELCAP is the SSD. ELCAP_1TB is the HDD. For troubleshooting purposes, I set all permissions to 777 but still get the prompt for Admin password when trying to write any file to any of the linked or non-linked directories. For example, the Desktop folder is kept on ELCAP (the SSD) and the Documents folder on ELCAP_1TB (the HDD) but trying to add a new folder or delete an existing file both trigger the prompt for Admin password.
jimac_wlan:Volumes jimac$ ls -al
total 8
drwxrwxrwt@ 4 root admin 136 Feb 22 20:00 .
drwxr-xr-x 30 root wheel 1088 Feb 21 23:17 ..
lrwxr-xr-x 1 root admin 1 Feb 22 16:18 ELCAP -> /
drwxrwxrwx 15 root wheel 578 Feb 21 22:20 ELCAP_1TB
jimac_wlan:Volumes jimac$ cd ELCAP_1TB/
jimac_wlan:ELCAP_1TB jimac$ ls -al
total 24
drwxrwxrwx 15 root wheel 578 Feb 21 22:20 .
drwxrwxrwt@ 4 root admin 136 Feb 22 20:00 ..
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 root staff 6148 Feb 22 20:03 .DS_Store
drwxrwxrwx 8 root staff 272 Feb 21 21:28 .DocumentRevisions-V100-bad-1
-rwxrwxrwx 1 root staff 321 Feb 16 20:42 .OSInstallMessages
drwxrwxrwx 5 root staff 170 Feb 16 20:43 .Spotlight-V100
drwxrwxrwx@ 5 root staff 170 Feb 20 09:53 .TemporaryItems
drwxrwxrwx@ 4 root staff 136 Feb 22 19:54 .Trashes
drwxrwxrwx 1540 root staff 52360 Feb 22 20:03 .fseventsd
drwxrwxrwx 3 root staff 102 Feb 20 23:51 Links
drwxrwxrwx 11 jason staff 374 Feb 20 22:07 jason
drwxrwxrwx 10 katherine staff 340 Feb 20 21:51 katherine
drwxrwxrwx@ 11 media staff 374 Feb 20 22:05 media
jimac_wlan:ELCAP_1TB jimac$ cd katherine/
jimac_wlan:katherine jimac$ ls -al
total 24
drwxrwxrwx 10 katherine staff 340 Feb 20 21:51 .
drwxrwxrwx 15 root wheel 578 Feb 21 22:20 ..
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 katherine staff 8196 Feb 21 22:16 .DS_Store
drwxrwxrwx@ 11 katherine staff 374 Jan 29 2015 Documents
drwxrwxrwx@ 571 katherine staff 19414 Feb 9 06:39 Downloads
drwxrwxrwx@ 43 katherine staff 1462 Jan 16 16:11 Dropbox
drwxrwxrwx@ 44 katherine staff 1496 Sep 21 22:05 Library
drwxrwxrwx@ 4 katherine staff 136 Dec 16 02:16 Movies
drwxrwxrwx@ 4 katherine staff 136 Aug 4 2013 Music
drwxrwxrwx@ 8 katherine staff 272 Feb 20 21:42 Pictures
Here is output of ls -al on /Users/katherine showing the symlinks.
[jimac_wlan:katherine jimac$ ls -al
total 80
drwxrwxrwx@ 20 katherine staff 680 Feb 20 21:47 .
drwxr-xr-x 8 root admin 272 Feb 22 20:05 ..
-rwxrwxrwx 1 katherine staff 7 Feb 19 16:47 .CFUserTextEncoding
-rwxrwxrwx@ 1 katherine staff 10244 Feb 22 20:05 .DS_Store
drwxrwxrwx 4 katherine staff 136 Feb 19 23:38 .Trash
-rwxrwxrwx 1 katherine staff 19 Mar 1 2014 .bash_history
drwxrwxrwx 3 katherine staff 102 Aug 28 2013 .cups
drwxrwxrwx 10 katherine staff 340 Feb 22 20:05 .dropbox
drwxrwxrwx 4 katherine staff 136 Feb 28 2015 .dvdcss
drwxrwxrwx 3 katherine staff 102 Jul 28 2014 .fontconfig
drwxrwxrwx 3 katherine staff 102 Aug 5 2013 .plex
drwxrwxrwx 3 katherine staff 102 Jul 22 2014 .plexht
drwxrwxrwx@ 79 katherine staff 2686 Feb 4 15:03 Desktop
lrwxr-xr-x 1 katherine staff 38 Feb 20 21:45 Documents -> /Volumes/ELCAP_1TB/katherine/Documents
lrwxr-xr-x 1 katherine staff 38 Feb 20 21:45 Downloads -> /Volumes/ELCAP_1TB/katherine/Downloads
drwxrwxrwx@ 52 katherine staff 1768 Feb 19 16:52 Library
lrwxr-xr-x 1 katherine staff 35 Feb 20 21:45 Movies -> /Volumes/ELCAP_1TB/katherine/Movies
lrwxr-xr-x 1 katherine staff 34 Feb 20 21:46 Music -> /Volumes/ELCAP_1TB/katherine/Music
lrwxr-xr-x 1 katherine staff 37 Feb 20 21:46 Pictures -> /Volumes/ELCAP_1TB/katherine/Pictures
drwxrwxrwx+ 3 katherine staff 102 Feb 18 18:28 Sites
When you tried what happened. I cannot tell you anything based on a simple directory listing. When you used the "sudo chown ... " command what was the system reply?
I think you need to open your own separate topic since you replied in a 5 month old topic that was long ago dead.
Cheers for your input. I have opened a new topic here that would be relevant for anyone using a multi-user setup with the hdd+ssd setup.
ssd and hdd setup
