M2 Studio UItra with Sonnet Echo 3 Chassis and OWC Exclesior card indexing sluggish

Your SoftRAID driver may be out-of-date. We have seen a flurry of recent updates, some that were critical to fast operation, issued in conjunction with the most recent MacOS updates.

One was so severe it crashed a system with brand-new, factory installed SoftRAID drivers. The maker issued new drivers, and even took back some Users drives to re-initialize with the newest version of the Drivers.

<<. When I click on a folder that has a large amount of files in it... for example an Audio Files folder that is 10 gigs with 4200 files in it, it takes the finder 60 entire seconds to show the files. Is this common? >>

That is too many items to store, flat, in one folder, and expect anything else when you LOOK at them.

Those files are likely stored in the order they were created, or possibly by name for rapid searching by name. Before being presented to you in LIST view, all these file names will be sorted into the last-specified order, such as by Date. Sorting that many file names takes some time, and Finder probably can not store that many filenames in RAM so it will have to do the sorting in pieces and then Merge the lists back together. Also, if space on the Boot drive is limited, EVERYTHING will be slow because that is what Finder will be using for scratch space, and possibly virtual memory if the list of names is really 4200 names long.

Before being presented in ICON View, each preview will be fetched as well.

I do not think this is unusual behavior. I think you have too many files in that folder, and need to either:

• put some of those files into folders, -OR-

• adjust your expectations about how fast the list can be presented to you in Finder.

Program access, which does not require as much sorting, may be much faster.

M series Max processor: The rear Thunderbolt ports (40 G bits/sec) are generated inside the system-on-a-Chip. The front USB-C ports are created using additional circuitry on the board, and are specified as limited to 10 G bits/sec (therefore not suitable for High-End displays).

M series Ultra processor (two Max processors 'glued' together): The rear Thunderbolt ports are generated inside one processor, the front ThunderBolt ports are generated inside the other processor. All are perfectly fast.

The first thing your should consider is setting aside your user-installed VPN.

 [Running] vpnprovider - version 7.0.8 (Fortinet, Inc - 2023-07-18)

    Application: /Applications/FortiClient.app - version 7.0.8 (Not found!)

  [Running] FortiClientPacketFilter - version 1.6.9 (Fortinet, Inc - 2023-07-18)

    Application: /Applications/FortiClient.app - version 1.6.9 (Not found!)

It provides no additional protection, but only serves to funnel everything through a remote server, and it could be contributing to slowness.

Your local Ethernet connections are over wires you control, your local Wi-Fi is encrypted, and nearly every web site you connect to is encrypted, You don't need no VPN.

try removing it and test again.

Using EtreCheck to Troubleshoot Potential… - Apple Community

I've read about the different results using the back & the front ports, at this age I can't remember exatly what other than one was far better than the other.

EtreCheck is a FREE simple little diagnostic tool to display the important details of your system configuration and allow you to copy that information to the Clipboard. It is meant to be used with Apple Support Communities to help people help you with your Mac. It will not display any personal info.

https://www.etrecheck.com/

Thanks for Old Toad’s etrecheck instructions…

Slow iMac 2017 - Apple Community

if that is the case, I am out of guesses.

How about producing that Etrecheck report, so Readers can help you analyze, instead of guessing.

I notice you have a Belkin USB Thunderbolt adapter listed as a device.

Your Studio has a built-in Ethernet port, but it requires four-pair Ethernet cables to operate. if you supply only two-pair cables, it will not work. The built-in Ethernet port does not support baseband (100 M bits/sec) only modulated (Gigabit and higher) speeds.

goombot wrote:

I don't have a VPN running. I believe that was a program an IT tech installed to try and do some port forwarding but I deleted at least the app. There is nothing in my applications or utilities folder that has a VPN in it.

then move this to Trash:

/Applications/FortiClient.app

...After a Restart, it will no longer be part of your running MacOS, so the Trash can be emptied.