Topic: Putting the "Users" directory on a different drive
Canis
canis
Joined: 14 Jan 2001 Posts: 17305
Posted: 11-30-2005 05:11 PM
Is it possible to make the default "Users" directory on a second hard drive, so when OS X starts up it uses the account folder on the second drive as the home folder? I'd like to do this because every now and then I get the urge to re-format for shits and giggles, and if there's a way to just point OS X to the second drive for the User directories then that would be great and easy to do when I dick around with the main drive.
For instance, I'd like the desktop to have "Macintosh HD" on it, but would also like the second drive to appear as "Users" on the desktop and have that actually be the Users directory that the system recognizes.
I've seen it done across a network with NetInfo. Essentially, all user homes were NFS shares that the local NeXTSTEP boxes would see under /Network.
What'll be important is the mount point for your external drive. You can mirror the current setup by copying the directories over to the external drive and then mounting the drive on boot time. Of course, if you don't have the drive turned on then you'd be screwed *but* you would actually end up in the original directory if you logged in ;-)