michaelde
Level 1 (0 points)

Q: Why does the iMac slow down to pinwheels when external drives are connected?

I have a 3.06 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 4 GB ram, 500 GB internal drive (with over 200 GB free), running OS X 10.8.3. I have two 2 GB Seagate drives connected externally. After I turn on the external drives, a short time later the iMac slows to a crawl (pinwheels). I can't even get the drives to be ejected, as the pinwheel continues non-stop. I am forced to unplug the drives, which could corrupt my data, in order to get the iMac to run again. Once the external drives are disconnected, the iMac runs fine. WHY?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.3)

Posted on May 5, 2013 1:16 PM

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michaelde

Q: Why does the iMac slow down to pinwheels when external drives are connected?

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  • by Allan Eckert,

    Allan Eckert Allan Eckert May 5, 2013 1:22 PM in response to michaelde
    Level 9 (54,085 points)
    Desktops
    May 5, 2013 1:22 PM in response to michaelde

    Are the external disks being indexed after you turn them on?

     

    Allan

  • by michaelde,

    michaelde michaelde May 5, 2013 4:22 PM in response to Allan Eckert
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 5, 2013 4:22 PM in response to Allan Eckert

    Would not know. Where would I locate that information?

  • by Allan Eckert,

    Allan Eckert Allan Eckert May 5, 2013 4:25 PM in response to michaelde
    Level 9 (54,085 points)
    Desktops
    May 5, 2013 4:25 PM in response to michaelde

    Open Activity Monitor when you connect the external disk and see if mds is take a lot of resourses.

     

    Allan

  • by MichelPM,

    MichelPM MichelPM May 5, 2013 4:33 PM in response to Allan Eckert
    Level 6 (14,260 points)
    iPad
    May 5, 2013 4:33 PM in response to Allan Eckert

    Another easy way to tell if the Spotlight functionality of OS X is indexing all of your hard drives is to look up at the magnifying glass icon in the upper right of the OS X top menu bar.

    If there is a dot in the middle of this magnifying glass, then Spotlight is indexing these drives.

    If you want Spotlight to stop indexing all of your drives, you need to launch OS X System Preferences panel from the gear icon in the OS X Dock. Look for the Spotlight magnifying glass icon. Click on the icon and look in the list and uncheck indexing of both the internal and your external drives.

  • by WZZZ,

    WZZZ WZZZ May 5, 2013 5:09 PM in response to michaelde
    Level 6 (13,112 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 5, 2013 5:09 PM in response to michaelde

    Open Activity Monitor in Utilities when this is happening--if you can-- and note any process that is consuming an unusual amount of CPU. How much CPU is idle when this is happening? Might want to leave AM open before you connect one of the externals.

  • by michaelde,

    michaelde michaelde May 5, 2013 5:23 PM in response to WZZZ
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 5, 2013 5:23 PM in response to WZZZ

    Indexing is not taking place. No abnormal activity is reported. Safari web content is usally at the top and bounces between 9 and 40 %

  • by michaelde,

    michaelde michaelde May 7, 2013 11:49 AM in response to michaelde
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 7, 2013 11:49 AM in response to michaelde

    Any further information would be appreciated

  • by MichelPM,

    MichelPM MichelPM May 7, 2013 12:06 PM in response to michaelde
    Level 6 (14,260 points)
    iPad
    May 7, 2013 12:06 PM in response to michaelde

    Do these external drives operate with their power supply, power block or are they powered using the power from the iMac's power supply to the USB ports on the back ( called bus powered).

  • by michaelde,

    michaelde michaelde May 7, 2013 7:03 PM in response to MichelPM
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 7, 2013 7:03 PM in response to MichelPM

    They have their own power supply through an a/c adapter

  • by WZZZ,

    WZZZ WZZZ May 7, 2013 8:51 PM in response to michaelde
    Level 6 (13,112 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 7, 2013 8:51 PM in response to michaelde

    Two things to try. Test from a Safe Boot, Shift at startup chime. Will need much longer to boot. And try from another account,  a new account or the Guest account.

     

    Also, how are these connected, USB, Firewire? Are they daisy chained? If daisy chained or not, does the beach balling happen if they are connected separately and just one at a time to separate ports? How are they formatted and partitioned?

     

    And you are absolutely certain that if you leave Activity Monitor open when you connect them (or it) you see no change in CPU consumption? Looking at the System Memory tab of AM, do you see any change in memory usage when they (or it) are connected?

     

    When did this start? Do you remember adding any programs that would have created system modifications from around this time?

  • by michaelde,

    michaelde michaelde May 7, 2013 9:29 PM in response to WZZZ
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 7, 2013 9:29 PM in response to WZZZ

    Ok. I have not booted into safe mode. The drives are USB plugged into a USB strip. The iMac only has 4 USB ports. So, with a printer, time machine backup, two external drives for video, photos and documents, UPS battery backup, CF flash card reader, video transfer cable and other accessories, you can see that the current configuration doesn't exactly fit. I have the number of USB devices down to the UPS, printer, time machine connected at all times. The external drives are only turned on when I need to access them, which is almost all the time. The card reader, video transfer, iPad/iPhone cable are only plugged into the strip as needed.

     

    The activity monitor absolutely is on and nothing out of the ordinary is spiking the cpu usage. Free mem is around 40MB, Wired 860+, Active 1.57GB, Inactive, 1.52GB, Used 3.94GB, VM size is 425MB, Page In 5.83GB, Page Out 2.4GB, Swap Used 4.62GB.

     

    Only occurs when the drives are connected. I'm waiting for a Firewire base to arrive and see if that will help.

     

    BTW, the time machine is 1TB, the other two drives are 2TB each. Tried a 3TB without success. I believe the OS wasn't configured to accept a drive that large. Maybe Mountain Lion will be able to now.

  • by MichelPM,

    MichelPM MichelPM May 7, 2013 9:46 PM in response to michaelde
    Level 6 (14,260 points)
    iPad
    May 7, 2013 9:46 PM in response to michaelde

    Well,

    I think we are starting to see the light.

    For starters, is the USB hub a powered hub or powered via from the computer?

    The USB hub, itself, could be causing your issue, also.

    You may have too many USB devices working at the same time.

    Also, you may be suffering from a lack of needed RAM.

    It looks to me as if your iMac only has 4 GBs of memory installed.

    Having only 40 MBs of free RAM memory space is not good.

    Your Page in/outs and swap file amounts are relatively high, also.

    OS X, by itself, can use between and up to  2-4 GBs of RAM to run smoothly, quickly and efficiently.

    OS X 10.7 & 10.8 use more CPU, GPU, RAM and hard drive resources.

    We do not know what year your iMac is but seeing it's a 3.06 Ghz CPU model, you can, at least install another 4 GBs of RAM for a total of 8 GBs of RAM.

    If your iMac model is a late 2009 or mid-2010 model iMac, it can take up to 16 GBs of RAM.

    Correct and reliable Mac RAM can be purchased from online Mac RAM sources Crucial memory or OWC (macsales.com).

  • by michaelde,

    michaelde michaelde May 8, 2013 2:59 AM in response to MichelPM
    Level 1 (0 points)
    May 8, 2013 2:59 AM in response to MichelPM

    Thank you. The USB hub has its own power source. RAM could be the issue. I don't have the tools to open the iMac, so I guess I'll have to let Apple do the upgrade.

  • by WZZZ,

    WZZZ WZZZ May 8, 2013 3:46 AM in response to michaelde
    Level 6 (13,112 points)
    Mac OS X
    May 8, 2013 3:46 AM in response to michaelde

    Temporarily disconnect all the other USB devices and plug one of the drives into one of the USB ports on the Mac. Do not use the hub. What happens? If so far so good, then plug the second external in to its own port on the Mac.

     

    What iMac is this? The only one I know of that doesn't have the RAM accessible is the latest late 2012 / 21.5. With any other model, you should be able to add RAM yourself and without any special tools.

     

    Restart before doing this.

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