Hi all,
I’m currently using Dropbox for the majority of my files and have all copies downloaded to an external 4TB drive that is constantly plugged into my Mac Mini. I’m interested in just switching to using iCloud Drive. However, is there a way to replicate this? I like having the backup of having all of my files downloaded, but obviously my computer doesn’t have the space for everything. Is there a way to have iCloud drive files download, update, etc. to an external drive instead of my computer?
AFAIK, iCloud is internal drive only. It’s easy to run Photos & Music on an external drive, and I’ve run other programs like Evernote and apple mail on external drives in the past. But the usual trick of using symlinks doesn’t work with iCloud. And now it doesn’t look like Catalina will allow mail to run on an external drive.
Because I use my Mac mini mainly as a home server, my solution has been to boot and run on an external SSD. The difference in performance has been negligible.