etrecheckpro shows slow hard drive. What to do?

I don't see any of the usual suspects. However, there are a couple of apps that have been known to be problematic for systems and apps: Dropbox and PACE Anti-Piracy.

Uninstall both according to the developer's instructions and test to see if the performance improves.

A Fusion Drive can easily hide a worn out or failing hard drive. You can run DriveDx to check the health of the hard drive and post the complete text report here using the "Additional Text" icon which looks like a piece of paper.

Even if the First Aid summary says everything is "Ok" click "Show Details" and scroll back through the report to see if any unfixed errors are listed. If there are any unfixed errors listed, then try running First Aid from Internet Recovery Mode (Command + Option + R), otherwise you will need to erase the Fusion Drive and restore from a backup or clone. For some reason Apple thinks unfixed errors are fine, but they are not and can contribute to performance issues or other problems.

It never hurts to run the Apple Diagnostics to see if any hardware issues are detected. However, the diagnostics won't detect most drive failures so it is best to use DriveDx to check the health of the hard drive if the diagnostics don't detect any issues.

There is a solution. Purchase and install an external SSD. Install the operating system onto it and select it as your startup disk. This will substantially increase your computer's speed by up to 70% based on my experience.

Your Fusion hybrid drive performance report already shows faster speeds than the common and affordable external solution. The only faster option is an expensive Thunderbolt 3 blade-type external SSD. Buying the common SATA 2.5 inch external USB3 drive would be going in reverse.

The external SATA 6 SSD maxes at about 400 MB/sec. Your current slowest speed is twice that.

I hope the following suggestions are helpful to you in dealing with your slow computer. Often times there is a specific cause and other times any of the following actions may be helpful. They are “maintenance” steps which are often ignored.

·      It is important to occasionally restart a Mac. Ideally, once a week or more often. This does some system cleaning.

·      Regularly clearing the history of your browsers can help as all the data is stored in RAM. Clearing frees up RAM for system use. You have sufficient RAM installed but you still want to use it wisely.

·      If your computer is set to startup with too many apps that will slow down the startup process.

·      Some programs use a lot of RAM. (Like many Adobe apps and the Chrome browser.) When using them, close any other apps not being used.

·      Doing a restart in the safe mode can clear a number of problems. This is done by holding down the Shift key at start up. This process can take up to ten minutes while the computer is doing its maintenance and cleans the cache. You may then restart normally.

·      It is also a good idea to run the Disk Utility app. If it reports some issues, then rerun it repeatedly as needed until the final report is ok.

I hope these suggestions are helpful and enable you to speed up your computer.