Please don't give up on me! I'm sure there's a solution, if only someone can make the instructions clear enough for me…-

[GeneL]

I'm stuck right now, because I can't seem to figure out the great information that I've received. Maybe because I'm only getting four to five hours of sleep for the last few weeks?

There seem to be some gaps in the suggestions I received and what has been left out may seem obvious to the poster, but my experience doesn't give me the information that I need to fill in those gaps. In this case, it hasn't been intuitive for me.

Please describe the steps from the start, in clear easy well defined terms, so that I can follow them, step by step.

Once again, I want to have everything, my applications documents and other basic files accessible as if they are located on the SSD, even if they are not. I have two 1TB bootable drives in my 2005 Mac Pro.

One, I have previously booted from and the other has been my backup drive.

Now, I would like to use my new 256 GB SSD as my main drive. How I accomplish having everything work from the SSD is my dilemma.

There seem to be a number of strategies to make this work, but so far, I haven't been able to accomplish what I need.

I'm still looking for the solution.

Thanks for your input.

[richorlin]

This might help:
Install an OS on the SSD to boot from, ** Reboot from the SSD **. Move all your apps over to the SSD. Point your home folder to the drive you were previously booting from by opening System Preferences->Users & Groups
Option & right-click on your user name and choose "Advanced options"
for "Home Directory" browse to your home folder on the previous boot drive.

Now, you will be speedily booting from the SSD and running your apps from the SSD but all your data will be on the spinning drive.

[GeneL]

I tried that richorlin, but when I dragged an app over from my main drive it didn't work. How do I move the apps over and have them work the way they're supposed to? When I pointed the user folder over I did get some apps to appear, but they didn't open as they should and one of my main apps, Entourage, didn't even show up, although Word showed up by itself.

I did click the advanced setting on the SSD'S User account and pointed it to the old User account on my main drive. When I restarted, nothing had changed although, and this is weird, I couldn't get any of the hard drives that I have installed in the MacPro to show up on the SSD'S Desktop. I went in to the Finder prefs and made the appropriate selections, but nothing showed up.

Right now, I'm starting over. I have to reinstall Lion and then what???

Can you make your instructions more clear for me? Please refer to the specific drive that I'm supposed to be working from and spell out what I'm supposed to select in the accounts prefer pane. There's a lot more information showing and I'm afraid to screw something up.

Thanks!

[Robert M]

Gene,

I have a strategy but it's going to require four drives. The first is your current primary drive. The second a working clone of your current drive. The third is an empty drive called "Archives" or anything that works for you. The fourth is the SSD. The working clone is your backup in the event something goes kablooey in the process.

What you need to do is remove from your primary drive enough items to reduce the amount of space everything requires to less than 200 gigs. I’;m recommending that numberbecause it leaves some room for when the amount of “stuff” on the drives expands. For the reduction, you'll copy "stuff" from the primary drive to the Archives drive. After you've done this, then you can clone the drive to the SSD using Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper.

You're not going to use exclusions or a special program for the reduction. You have to do it manually folder and/or file at a time. It's time consuming but it will work. I know it will work because I've gone through the process three times. The first when I moved to an SSD in my Mac Pro, the second when I moved my Macbook Pro (aka home office notebook) to an SSD and last week when I moved one of our office's notebooks to an SSD.

Take your time and be careful. As I said, this method worked for me but I can’t say whether or not it will work for you. Your mileage may vary. If you’re not careful, it could result in disaster and that’s the last thing I want to see happen to you under any circumstances.

Here goes:

In your previous post, you listed a bunch of folders and such you have on your machine.

1. Don't mess with the applications folder unless it is to remove an app or two that you rarely use or haven't used in years.

2. On the Archives drive, create a folder hierarchy like the following:

a. Documents
b. Desktop Stuff
c. Downloads
d. Movies, Music & Pictures Folders
e. Stored Desktop Files saved from previous backup

I’m not sure what “Stored Desktop Files saved from previous backup” is because I’ve never seen a folder like that before. Maybe it’s related to the backup program you mentioned in the other thread.

3. From the Documents folder on your Primary drive, copy anything that you don’t use often and/or don’t need handy into the documents folder on the Archives drive.

4. From the Desktop folder on your Primary drive, copy anything that you don’t use often and/or don’t need handy into the Desktop Stuff folder on the Archives drive.

5. From the Downloads folder on your Primary drive, copy as much as possible into the Downloads folder on the Archives drive.

6. I’m not sure what to do with the “Stored Desktop Files saved from Previous backup” folder because it’s an unknown. I’m hoping you can just copy it entirely to the archives drive otherwise, it will create a problem in the reduction process. Maybe someone else in the forum can offer guidance on this one.

7. Movies, Music & Pictures Folders is going to more difficult because of the iTunes and iPhoto factors. Is it reasonable to assume you have an “iTunes” folder with your movies, music, TV shows, iBooks and such in it? If so, copy that entire folder into the Movies, Music & Pictures Folder on the Archives drive. I’m assuming you have an “Iphoto Library” in the pictures folder. I didn’t mess with the iPhoto library because I like having immediate access to my photos and such. That and it was too much of a pain to try and move it all. But, it is feasible.

Once you’ve copied the files from the above folders to the Archives drive, you can then delete them from your Primary drive. That means directly tossingitems into the trash. Or, opening iTunes and deleting files. Keep copying and deleting files until the amount of space all your stuff requires is less than 200 gigs.

Some caveats... I wouldn’t delete iOS apps. I didn’t do it because I’m not sure what will happen if you delete them. The next sync may restore them from the iOS devices.

You may also need to copy email from the Primary drive to the Archives drive. Thismeans messing with the Library folder in your home directly. I wouldn’t do this unless it process absolutely necessary and I definitely wouldn’t do it without guidance.

But, once you’ve done the copying from the Primary drive to the Archives drive and deleting the originals (from the Primary drive) I’m hoping you’ll have reduced the amount of space your stuff requires to below the 200 gig mark.

Once you’ve hit that mark, you can then use Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to clone your newly reduced Primary drive to the SSD and then make the SSD your boot drive.

Keep in mind, once the SSD is yourboot drive, you’ll have to “cleanup” regularly by copying stuff to the Archives drive and the deleting it off the SSD otherwise, you’ll quickly run out of space.

That and I’d buy another drive so you can make regular backups of your archives drive. In my tower, I have the SSD (primary drive), a direct clone of the SSD onto a platter drive, a Time Machine drive an Archives drive and then more backups of the the SSD and Archives drive.

I’ll repeat what I said in the beginning. Take your time and be careful. This method worked for me but I can’t say whether or not it will work for you.Your mileage may vary. If you’re not careful, it could result in disaster and that’s the last thing I want to see happen to you under any circumstances.

Robert

[GeneL]

"If you’re not careful, it could result in disaster and that’s the last thing I want to see happen to you under any circumstances."

With an average of three to five hours of sleep for a couple of weeks, this seems way too complicated for me to attempt. :argh:

[space-time]

Why do you get so little sleep ?

[mattkime]

I think he's explained that its health related but i think he's out late partying with babes

[GeneL]

Shush! Don't let Mavis hear you say that or I'll have to move in with you, Matt.

[jdc]

Rolandos solution in the last post was exactly the way it should be done.

[Article Accelerator]

If your current boot drive contains less than 240 GB or so of data, clone it then restore it to the new SSD using Disk Utility. Then use System Preferences to designate the new SSD as your Startup Disk

Restart and you're done.