Small Time Machine backups take longer than big ones, Disk First Aid taking *hours*

100 Watt Walrus wrote:

So I thought I'd run Disk First Aid to see if there's anything wrong with the drive...

What drive? You didn't try running Disk First Aid on a Time Machine volume did you? You'll die before that completes.

The slow backups were a problem on my previous computer, and my previous drive as well.

What is "previous drive"?

WP Elements 2GB external drive, APFS-formatted with USB-C direct into the computer

I think you mean "WD Elements 2TB". You have to be specific about these things. Otherwise, people are just guessing. I'm going to assume you meant this drive: https://www.westerndigital.com/en-ca/products/portable-drives/wd-elements-portable-usb-3-0-hdd?sku=WDBU6Y0020BBK-WESN

That's a 2 TB 2.5" mechanical drive with a USB 3.0 interface. It is made by WD, who has developed a reputation for developing innovative new ways to save money and create slower devices. They sell 5 TB versions of this drive, which is highly suspicious. WD has been the subject of quite a bit of discussions regarding its new "shingled" hard drives that enable much higher amounts of storage with outrageously slow speeds. All those discussions centre around WD's use of this technology in its name-brand NAS and "colour" drives. I think it is safe to assume that this consumer external drive is also shingled.

To make a long story short, that drive is just ridiculously slow. It retails for about $100. For $200 you can get a 2 TB Samsung T7 with USB 3.2, which will run about 20-30 times faster.

100 Watt Walrus wrote:

If not Disk First Aid, then what?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Cs3Pvmmv0E

You've got to have faith.

I appreciate the 411 on Western Digital. I've used their drives for a long time, and bought this one out of habit and penny-pinching. I guess I'll bite the bullet and pony up for the Samsung. 4.8 starts from 29K reviews on Amazon is pretty hard to beat!

Samsung makes good external hard drives. That being said, Amazon reviews are fake.

Any knowledge of the less expensive Samsung T7 Shield or the Crucial X8?

I was just guessing about the price, and guessing in Canadian dollars. I just bought a 4 TB Samsung T7 Shield the other day. I've never purchased a Crucial, but other people recommend them highly.

There are still high-quality mechanical drives available, but they are difficult to find. You have to do a lot of research. Generally speaking, anything that runs at 7200 RPM or higher is high quality. If it doesn't say the RPM, don't buy. Also, the enclosure is very important. The enclosure that you get with any of those "consumer-grade" external drives is totally worthless. There are decent USB 3.2 and Thunderbolt enclosures available, but again, really hard to find.

User wrote " Internal drive has 436GB of 500GB in use... "

This will represent 87.2 % of the Total Internal Drive Capacity as Used.

It is generally a good computer practice to alway keep at least 20% (100 GB) to 25% (125 GB) of the Total Drive Capacity’s as Empty Space.

Allowing the computer to drop below these guidelines may eventually cause unintended consequences.

This could include the issue the computer is experiencing now - dead slow TM Backups