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Can I Run Accordance from a Flash Drive?


John F. Hart

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Can I place Accordance 9.6 or 10 (and necessary files) on a flash drive and run it on another computer? This may be convenient for me in a certain situation when I must use another Mac other than my own. If it can work, how do I do this?

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John - Consider one of these drives (I have two I use alternately for TimeMachine).

 

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/on-the-go

 

Install OS 10 on it, then Accordance. You could boot up from that drive on another Mac and run everything from it, I think. This drive has the advantage of being bus-powered, compact, and nearly silent. It's not as compact as a flash drive, but you can boot from it, and I think that is what you're going to have to do to run Accordance.

 

I have never heard of anyone running an OS 10 application without actually installing it on the system. If I'm wrong about this, one of the true geeks will get it right for us.

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Grateful. The drives look very good. That might be the solution, and I could use another backup drive anyway. I'll see if anyone else gives some advice.

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You can set up Accordance to use an external hard drive for its contents, but its tricky. To detail it, there are 4 file locations to be aware of:

 

1) Accordance.app. This is installed to the Applications folder, but can easily reside anywhere, including your flash drive.

2) Library/Application Support/Accordance. This is the main content of Accordance, and the program looks for it in either /Library or ~/Library. This can be hosted on an external drive, but needs to be symbolically linked there. Its not hard to do symlinks if you know what to do, but it has to be set up on the system, so this might be a deal-killer for you.

3) ~/Documents/Accordance Files. This is where highlights, user notes, and other user content is usually saved and read. Its not as important to a working Accordance install, but will need to be symlinked as well if you need it.

4) ~/Library/Preferences/Accordance Preferences. These are all of your user defaults that will again need to be symlinked to be read by Accordance.

 

So, the only way I can think of setting it up for mobile usage is by a very intrepid user. A user that runs a little script that creates these symlinks to the folders on the flash drive, that then clears them up afterwards. Its not easy, but it is possible. Hope this helps!

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Hey Joel, could we make these paths user definable? (perhaps the way iTunes/iPhoto do for the Libraries)

 

I have had all sorts of problems with symlinked directories and ended up reverting to plain directories. But to be able to select where your documents go, and (with perhaps an extra hurdle) to select where your library is would be sometimes quite useful - as evidenced above.

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All of this is helpful! I might go with the external drive, but first try some of Joel's set up. I'm not the "intrepid" user he mentioned. :)

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  • 2 years later...

Have there been any updates to this process since 2012? I'm looking to start running accordance on an external hard drive.

 

Thank you!

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If someone verifies that symlinks work without hitch for these locations in Accordance, it'd be easy to write a script that sets those up automatically.

 

One change is that now the "Accordance Files" folder has an alternate location if using Dropbox syncing.

 

I can write the setup applet, if using Symlinks does not create problems for Accordance.

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You could also create a bootable clone of your hard drive with Super Duper and boot from it to run OS X and Accordance on the go. Plus your entire Mac would "go with you", and it's easy to restore your files if your hard drive crashes. :-)

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I haven’t tried recently, but in earlier versions of 10 it didn’t work reliably for me when I tried.

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Long time ago I messed with symlinks to move stuff around for accordance and didn't work well is my memory. That's why I'm hesitant to make it easier for others to do it, unless it's confirmed as working well now.

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  • 5 years later...

I Just recently bought the accordance for windows (v. 12, but upgraded to v. 13). Like most of what is posted here, I have problems with my very limited hard disk space and have to resort to installing accordance in my USB drive. 
If I install on the USB drive, somehow some portions of the program are still installing in the hard disk, thus making it difficult to install. I've read earlier that i should use Symbolic link and after several tries, i found that you should do this steps:

1. Make a folder on the hard drive at C:\ProgramData (usually hidden) and name it Accordance. Thus, you will get C:\ProgramData\Accordance.

2. Make a similar folder on the USB drive you intend to install the accordance. (ex. here is D:\ProgramData\Accordance)

3. Make a sym link on the hard drive setting the target as C:\ProgramData\Accordance to the link at D:\ProgramData\Accordance

4. Install the program. 

5. For installing your purchased license, you have to install it piecewise, esp. when it is a very large file. It still occupies space on the hard disk as buffer before transferring to the USB drive. It will take time, but this one gives the solution to install the program on a USB without consuming space on the main drive.

 

Hope this helps.

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