My Internal HDD crashed in January and I bought an external SSD. After installing the MacOS it works but ends up crashing if I’m doing anything heavy like watch YouTube etc. The external is a USB plug/play non active adapter. Could this be my issue? Do I need a powered external to run the OS more efficiently? It’s OS Catalina and I’m using a ADATA SSD. Otherwise will take other possible advice that it could be.
thanks
iMac 27″, macOS 10.15
Notes from EtreCheck:
Between the crashes and the general slowness of the external SSD, I would return your current external SSD and buy a good quality SSD with excellent performance. I use the LaCie Mobile SSD High-Performance External SSD USB-C USB 3.0 - Apple.
Here is a User Tip with more info, instructions, and what external SSD to buy: How to Setup and Use an External SSD as y… - Apple Community.
Also, what purpose does the "Seagate Portable 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD" serve?
Cheers,
Jack
Notes from EtreCheck:
Between the crashes and the general slowness of the external SSD, I would return your current external SSD and buy a good quality SSD with excellent performance. I use the LaCie Mobile SSD High-Performance External SSD USB-C USB 3.0 - Apple.
Here is a User Tip with more info, instructions, and what external SSD to buy: How to Setup and Use an External SSD as y… - Apple Community.
Also, what purpose does the "Seagate Portable 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD" serve?
Cheers,
Jack
What is the exact make/model of the SSD?
Also, I believe we need to proceed with an EtreCheck report. EtreCheck is a useful App to diagnose and identify issues, both hardware and software. It is trusted by many users. Please follow the steps outlined below:
Cheers,
Jack
EtreCheckPro version: 6.4.4 (6E015)
Report generated: 2021-06-03 13:33:33
Download EtreCheckPro from https://etrecheck.com
Runtime: 3:10
Performance: Good
Problem: Computer is restarting
Description:
installed new external ssd for bootable drive for Mac OS. Its causing
crashes and restarts when using taxing apps or websites like YouTube
etc
Major Issues:
Anything that appears on this list needs immediate attention.
No Time Machine backup - Time Machine backup not found.
Obsolete hardware - This computer may be considered obsolete.
Minor Issues:
These issues do not need immediate attention but they may indicate future problems or opportunities for improvement.
SSD too slow - SSD is showing poor performance.
Hardware Information:
iMac (27-inch, Late 2012) - Obsolete!
iMac Model: iMac13,2
3.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i7 (i7-3770) CPU: 4-core
8 GB RAM - Upgradeable
BANK 0/DIMM0 - 4 GB DDR3 1600
BANK 1/DIMM0 - Empty
BANK 0/DIMM1 - 4 GB DDR3 1600
BANK 1/DIMM1 - Empty
Video Information:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MX - VRAM: 2 GB
iMac 2560 x 1440
Drives:
disk0 - Seagate Portable 2.00 TB
External USB 5 Gbit/s USB
disk0s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB
disk0s2 [APFS Container] 2.00 TB
disk3 [APFS Virtual drive] 2.00 TB (Shared by 5 volumes)
disk3s1 - U**************************** - Data (APFS) [APFS Virtual drive] (Shared - 9.45 GB used)
disk3s2 - Preboot (APFS) [APFS Preboot] (Shared - 26 MB used)
disk3s3 - Recovery (APFS) [Recovery] (Shared - 526 MB used)
disk3s4 - VM (APFS) [APFS VM] (Shared - 4.30 GB used)
disk3s5 - U**************************T (APFS) (Shared - 11.09 GB used)
disk1 - ADATA SD600Q 960.20 GB
External USB 5 Gbit/s USB
disk1s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB
disk1s2 [APFS Container] 959.85 GB
disk2 [APFS Virtual drive] 959.85 GB (Shared by 5 volumes)
disk2s1 - N************************ - Data (APFS) (Shared - 16.20 GB used)
disk2s2 - Preboot (APFS) [APFS Preboot] (Shared - 29 MB used)
disk2s3 - Recovery (APFS) [Recovery] (Shared - 526 MB used)
disk2s4 - VM (APFS) [APFS VM] (Shared - 5.37 GB used)
disk2s5 - N**********************C (APFS) (Shared - 11.24 GB used)
disk4 - WDC WD75 00AAVS-00D7B0 750.16 GB
External USB 480 Mbit/s USB
disk4s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB
disk4s2 - S********************l (Journaled HFS+) 749.81 GB
disk5 - APPLE SSD SM128E 121.33 GB (Solid State - TRIM: Yes)
Internal SATA 6 Gigabit Serial ATA
disk5s1 - EFI (MS-DOS FAT32) [EFI] 210 MB
disk5s2 [APFS Container] 121.12 GB
Mounted Volumes:
disk3s1 - U**************************** - Data [APFS Virtual drive]
2.00 TB (Shared - 9.45 GB used, 1.97 TB free)
APFS
Mount point: /System/Volumes/Data
disk3s4 - VM [APFS VM]
2.00 TB (Shared - 4.30 GB used, 1.97 TB free)
APFS
Mount point: /private/var/vm
disk3s5 - U**************************T
2.00 TB (Shared - 11.09 GB used, 1.97 TB free)
APFS
Mount point: /
Read-only: Yes
Network:
Interface en0: Ethernet
Interface en1: Wi-Fi
802.11 a/b/g/n
Interface en4: Bluetooth PAN
Interface bridge0: Thunderbolt Bridge
iCloud Quota: 4.99 GB available
System Software:
macOS Catalina 10.15.7 (19H15)
Time since boot: Less than an hour
Security:
Gatekeeper: App Store and identified developers
System Integrity Protection: Enabled
Antivirus software: Apple
System Launch Agents:
[Not Loaded] 15 Apple tasks
[Loaded] 174 Apple tasks
[Running] 124 Apple tasks
System Launch Daemons:
[Not Loaded] 38 Apple tasks
[Loaded] 174 Apple tasks
[Running] 125 Apple tasks
Backup:
Time Machine Not Configured!
Performance:
System Load: 2.95 (1 min ago) 3.55 (5 min ago) 2.36 (15 min ago)
Nominal I/O speed: 0.01 MB/s
File system: 25.24 seconds
Write speed: 113 MB/s
Read speed: 120 MB/s
CPU Usage Snapshot:
Type Overall
System: 1 %
User: 1 %
Idle: 98 %
Top Processes Snapshot by CPU:
Process (count) CPU (Source - Location)
system_profiler (2) 65.20 % (Apple)
trustd (4) 6.94 % (Apple)
WindowServer 5.54 % (Apple)
EtreCheckPro 5.34 % (Etresoft, Inc.)
kernel_task 2.50 % (Apple)
Top Processes Snapshot by Memory:
Process (count) RAM usage (Source - Location)
system_profiler (2) 630 MB (Apple)
MTLCompilerService (35) 561 MB (Apple)
EtreCheckPro 476 MB (Etresoft, Inc.)
com.apple.WebKit.WebContent (4) 212 MB (Apple)
accountsd 166 MB (Apple)
Top Processes Snapshot by Network Use:
Process (count) Input / Output (Source - Location)
Safari 143 KB / 5 KB (Apple)
mDNSResponder 58 KB / 35 KB (Apple)
apsd 13 KB / 25 KB (Apple)
netbiosd 13 KB / 10 KB (Apple)
cloudd 7 KB / 2 KB (Apple)
Top Processes Snapshot by Energy Use:
Process (count) Energy (0-100) (Source - Location)
WindowServer 4 (Apple)
mDNSResponder 0 (Apple)
opendirectoryd 0 (Apple)
softwareupdated 0 (Apple)
com.apple.cmio.registerassistantservice 0 (Apple)
Virtual Memory Information:
Physical RAM: 8 GB
Free RAM: 1.45 GB
Used RAM: 4.47 GB
Cached files: 2.08 GB
Available RAM: 3.53 GB
Swap Used: 0 B
Diagnostics Information (past 7-30 days):
End of report
SSD used first had crashes
ADATA SD600Q 960GB Ultra-Speed Portable Durable External SSD - Up to 440MB/s - 3D NAND USB3.2 Black (ASD600Q-960GU31-CBK)
currently testing this DRIVE with boot option
Seagate Portable 2TB External Hard Drive Portable HDD – USB 3.0 for PC, Mac, PS4, & Xbox - 1-Year Rescue Service (STGX2000400)
Well it was crashing on the SSD and was not sure why. So I put it on my Seagate to see if it would have crashing issues too. It also crashed. I feel like I need to try an ac powered external which I have just an older one.
i just don’t understand the crashing and I would rather not trash my IMAC right now without trying everything.
It appears you have macOS on both the SSD and the Seagate. Why?
The external seagate was just to test that’s all. I’m going to move it to my MacBook as a time machine at this point.
i will try out your suggestions. Thanks
IMAC external bootable SSD
