Traveling Volumes

[emader]

I usually do software development from my home office on a Mac Pro. On this machine, I have my home directory stored on a separate volume (/Volumes/Data/Users/emader) so that I can use the same home directory from different versions of the OS.

Every few months I have to travel to my home office, where I use a different computer. In the past, I've used SuperDuper to clone my Data volume to a portable drive. While at the home office, I either work directly off of the clone, or copy it to an internal volume on a machine there. If I've made a copy, I clone it back to the portable drive before returning home.

The last time I got back to my home office, I copied the Data volume from the portable drive back onto my home development machine. This left my user volume in an odd state - I guess because I was running from /Volumes/Data/Users/emader while doing the copy from the portable drive.

What's the best way to update the Data volume on my home machine? Should I do an update instead of a copy? Should I switch my home directory to /Users/emader while I do the update?

Regards,
Eric Mader

[dnanian]

Yeah, I wouldn't suggest copying over a drive you're current logged into and running from. I'd either start up from a different system entirely, or copy while logged into a different account.

[emader]

Makes sense. I assume I should log into an account that has the same User ID (501 in my case) to keep the permissions right?

Regards,
Eric

[dnanian]

I don't think that'll matter - the permissions will be copied from the files on the drive, not from the logged in user.

[emader]

That makes sense. Thanks!