Need to Index External Drives ... but Terminal not cooperating ...

Question

Need to Index External Drives ... but Terminal not cooperating ...

I need to constantly access a 16 TB external drive ... Photo files ... but it takes Forever for the windows to build, each and everything I access the drive. I would like to force index it using Terminal but as soon as I enter the first command ... sudo mdutil -Ea ... I get a Password Request ... but that doesn't even let me enter my password?

What to do? Any other options to get my external HD's to Index?

Thanks ...

Mac Studio, macOS 13.5

Posted on Aug 25, 2023 8:20 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Aug 26, 2023 8:50 AM in response to Frederick Koiwai

I WAS able to get my External HD's ... all of them ... to Index ... by inputting sudo mdutil -Ea into Terminal. Of course you are right ... I simply typed in my PW!

The recommendation was to also type in: mdutil -ai off (in red) and then mdutil -ai on (in red) ... but it had instantly started to Index as soon as I put in that first line.

Should add those two other off and on's ?

Thanks ....

Reply

Answer 2

steve626

Level 6

14,487 points

Aug 26, 2023 8:55 AM in response to Frederick Koiwai

Frederick Koiwai wrote:

I WAS able to get my External HD's ... all of them ... to Index ... by inputting sudo mdutil -Ea into Terminal. Of course you are right ... I simply typed in my PW!

The recommendation was to also type in: mdutil -ai off (in red) and then mdutil -ai on (in red) ... but it had instantly started to Index as soon as I put in that first line.

Should add those two other off and on's ?

Thanks ....

I don't understand the need for Terminal. We use lots of external drives (not 16 TB, but some are 5 TB) and they all index automatically without active user involvement. Perhaps keeping the computer from sleeping until the drive finishes indexing might speed it up, but I have never had to use those Terminal commands to "force" indexing.

Do you have other system utilities (third party) installed, security software, anti-virus, "cleaning" tools, etc.?

Reply

Answer 3

Yer_Man

Level 10

166,056 points

Aug 26, 2023 12:41 AM in response to Frederick Koiwai

What format is the drive?

How are you attached to it?

In Terminal it never shows you the password as you type. Just type and hit return

Reply

Answer 4

Yer_Man

Level 10

166,056 points

Aug 26, 2023 2:59 PM in response to Frederick Koiwai

It might be worth considering an app to manage and catalogue those images. These apps will work with the photo metadata more readily that Spotlight. Check out NeoFinder, for instance

https://cdfinder.de/

Reply

Answer 5

Aug 26, 2023 12:09 PM in response to steve626

MalwareBytes ... but that's it. This has been an on going issue with my last "2019" iMac. I was hoping it would not be a problem with my new Studio ... but there is was ... nice new FAST computer waiting for the windows to populate. The Indexing once I put that command in Terminal was Very FAST! But, what has happened in the past, is that it seems to lose its Index? Now that I've learned how quickly that can be rectified, I'M Happy!

But if you have any other ideas, I would love to hear them. The 16TB drive has about 12 TB's of images and videos. There is another one with about 8TB's of files.

Reply

Answer 6

Aug 26, 2023 8:27 AM in response to Yer_Man

Thanks ... Per Disk Utility, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) ... but System Report says: File System Journaled HFS+ ?

USB3 Gen2 Hub (USB to ATA/ATAP Bridge)

Reply

Need to Index External Drives ... but Terminal not cooperating ...

Similar questions