Home Folders Query

[ukez]

Quick query..

I normally create different network drives for specific categories like Movies, Music, Photos, Accounts, Contracts, Websites, Drive X, Drive Y, Drive Z etc

I got my new device and I'm just starting from scratch once again and have decided to add all my shared media related content under the multimedia drive like this:

Multimedia: with subfolders/

Home Videos
Karaoke
Movies
Music
Music Videos
Photos
TV Shows

The above being used in conjunction with Photo Station, Video Station, Music Station, Kodi and Plex.


Instead of creating separate drives for these examples: Accounts, Contracts, Websites, Editing, Drive X, Drive Y, Drive Z.

I'm wondering if it would make more sense to add those as standard folders under the 'home' folder for my specific user, and then just let other users do whatever they want under their own home directories.

If I did that and ever accidental switched off the 'Enable home folder for all users' option am i right in thinking that switching that off won't delete the files and folders that exist in all users Home folders, but instead will just disable and hide the home directories from all users 'except the original admin account'?

Any ideas?

Thanks....

[schumaku]

Instead of creating separate drives for these examples: Accounts, Contracts, Websites, Editing, Drive X, Drive Y, Drive Z.
I'm wondering if it would make more sense to add those as standard folders under the 'home' folder for my specific user, and then just let other users do whatever they want under their own home directories.

If these are shared folders exclusively used for a dedicated singe user, and there is no need to support drive letters for legacy applications ... yes, why not?

If I did that and ever accidental switched off the 'Enable home folder for all users' option am i right in thinking that switching that off won't delete the files and folders that exist in all users Home folders, but instead will just disable and hide the home directories from all users 'except the original admin account'?

There are things which should not happen accidentally. Bet the homes shared folder will be gone, too - not sure about the data.

As you have a brand new device - why not test it for your purposes?

[ukez]

Instead of creating separate drives for these examples: Accounts, Contracts, Websites, Editing, Drive X, Drive Y, Drive Z.
I'm wondering if it would make more sense to add those as standard folders under the 'home' folder for my specific user, and then just let other users do whatever they want under their own home directories.

If these are shared folders exclusively used for a dedicated singe user, and there is no need to support drive letters for legacy applications ... yes, why not?

If I did that and ever accidental switched off the 'Enable home folder for all users' option am i right in thinking that switching that off won't delete the files and folders that exist in all users Home folders, but instead will just disable and hide the home directories from all users 'except the original admin account'?

There are things which should not happen accidentally. Bet the homes shared folder will be gone, too - not sure about the data.

As you have a brand new device - why not test it for your purposes?

Hi schumaku, Yeah i tested it..

I can report following for anyone else who's interested.

When you enable the 'HOME FOLDER' option on a TS-453a, it will indeed create each user a separate usable directory listed as 'HOME'; that's every user including the admin gets one.

Under the main ADMIN account though you will also see an additional folder called 'HOMES'.

The 'HOMES' directory is where all users 'HOME' content is stored.

NOTE: Although the users see their own HOME folder listed as 'HOME' for each individual user (including admin), the admin himself will see each users home directory actually listed as the users username under the 'HOMES' folder.


So for example: Admin, Paul, Simon, Lisa.

User: Admin
Will see a 'HOME' dir

User: Paul
Will see a 'HOME' dir

User: Simon
Will see a 'HOME' dir

User: Lisa
Will see a 'HOME' dir

As standard, but the Admin will also see a 'HOMES' directory.

User: Admin
Will see a 'HOME' dir (as above)
+
Will see a 'HOMES' dir

Under the admin login account the 'HOMES' directory will list the following for each users HOME folder as their usernames.

So it looks like this:

HOMES
/Admin
/Paul
/Simon
/Lisa

If you do allow your users to use the home home directory as their sole primary shared drive and they store data on it and for some strange reason you accidentally disable the option, I found that QTS does not delete any files, it simple removes all listings and access of the 'HOME' folder to each user, but the admin can still see the files and still re-enable the homes directory again without any obvious problems.