Moving Home Folder in Tiger

T

torachan

Registered
During my past couple years of OSX use I have always kept my Home Folder on a seperate partition than the Startup Volume. For organizational purposes I liked having all my personal files (music, photos, documents, etc.) seperate from my apps and system files. Furthermore, I had read somewhere that it was a bit safer that way in case I had any problems with the Startup Volume, I could erase and reinstall it without affecting my personal files.

I am about to upgrade to Tiger and I am just wondering if this is still a viable and worthwhile option in Tiger? I am curious if anything has changed with Tiger that would strongly discourage me from setting things up this way.

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!
 
Most files I've saved and downloaded I'm able to select the direction where I want them saved such as my second partition if that's what you mean ;)
 
Well, how did you do it in Panther and earlier? Same thing now. (NetInfo?) Just do it.
 
I think if you use a sym-link (move home folder, then sym link to it) NetInfo realises it's an "alias" and changes where it looks (that's the nature of a sym-link. a hard-link makes the user/program/process think it actually is opening the file at the "fake" address.)
 
Unless you are a developer, there's almost no need for multiple partitions. That's a Windows mindset.
 
Randman said:
Unless you are a developer, there's almost no need for multiple partitions. That's a Windows mindset.
Click to expand...
Randman,

Would you mind elaborating on that post?

I am not a developer, but as I stated in my original post I like using partitions to seperate the Startup Volume and personal files for organizational purposes and so that I have a little protection if the Startup Volume gets corrupted...I can erase and re-install without messing with the personal files.

Seeing as how I have never owned a Windows machine nor really ever used one, I am not sure how my preference for organizing with partitions is a Windows mindset.

torachan
 
Randman said:
Unless you are a developer, there's almost no need for multiple partitions. That's a Windows mindset.
Click to expand...
I think he meant on an entirely seperate disk volume... not just a seperate partition on the same disk.

I've had my /users/tommywillb physically living on an external drive for well over a year. It's a great way to take my home directory with me to use on other machines. Plus it's easy to make clones of this seperate disk for backup and offsite storage. Additionally it give me OS upgrade peach of mind because I can login as another user, dismount that drive and update the OS without any fear that I'll hose my home directory.

Maybe it is a non-standard "mindset", but I think it is an absolutely valid option for non-WinDoze folks.
 
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