I have another observation. When I compare how long it takes to view the contents of a directory in Mavericks, it is clearly a lot longer than it would take a DOS "dir" or Unix "ls" command to do the same. Could it be that the Mavericks Finder is doing other things at the same time as it is giving me a list of what is in the directory? For example, could the Mavericks Finder be loading ALL metadata for each of the files into some database or index being built on the fly every time I pop into a new folder, even if I'm not using a view mode where I am asking to see those other bits of metadata? If so, that might make sense as I generally am using the network drive to navigate directories of my photographs, and they have a lot more categories of metadata associated with them than do Word docs and PDFs (e.g., date of picture, time of picture, aperture, shutter speed, exposure, etc.). Or, perhaps is Finder trying to load previews of ALL of the files whenever a directory request is made, so that bouncing through the previews takes less time? I sort of doubt that, because even after a directory listing finally comes up, it seems to churn a bit on each photo before the preview comes up, which I take as an indication that it's creating each preview only after a request is made for that particular file. Either way, I will say that in old WinXP and even in the newer Windows 7, if you want to view files in a Detailed setting where you can see other metadata (called "Attributes"), it definitely prioritizes giving you a directory listing, and then continues filling in the various selected Attributes one-by-one after that. Thus, if you want to sort by the date a photograph was taken (as opposed to its modified or created date, which seem to be default attributes that load as quickly (or nearly as quickly) as the filename), or by the photo's dimensions, it might take a few minutes to load in those attributes for a folder of a couple thousand pictures. But, critically, if you are not planning on using those attributes, but rather, merely want to see how many files you have in that folder, or select them all and load them into a photo viewer, you won't have to wait for the file system to load the file attributes before you get a listing of the folder's contents. It seems to me like the Mavericks Finder, however, might actually be forcing you to wait until it has loaded all of those attributes.
Does the foregoing sound like a plausible explanation of the problem to those out there with knowledge of how Finder actually works? And if so, does that bring to mind any potential settings that could be turned off or any other work-arounds (since the auto_master edit didn't fix the problems I've been experiencing)?
As another point, I will also note that it seems to me that whatever process is going on often seems to continue even after I've left a folder, with the result being that if I bounce in and out of several folders in a short period of time, the Finder gets slower and slower, to the point where even listing the contents of a folder with one file in it can take over a minute. Again, it seems like Finder is doing something time-consuming in the background whenever you go into a folder for the first time. Whatever it is, I will echo what others here have said – this is not a small issue. For certain routine operations, it is excruciatingly slow, and makes the computer almost unusable as a practical matter. This is not – as others have suggested – a problem that can be chalked up to people just being impatient.
