"Cleaning" internal drive as suggested by Adobe

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Level 1

9 points

"Cleaning" internal drive as suggested by Adobe

Since upgrading from Snow Leopard to Mountain Lion a couple of months ago, my whole system is running very slow. Lots of spining beach balls. Folders taking a long time to be accessed and opened.

As most people do, I also upgraded my main software at the same time, in this case Adobe Lightroom from 3 to 5 (plus other software like Daylite).

Since the upgrade, Adobe Lightroom has been running very slow to recognize show new folders when created from within the software. After an hour long tech support call with Adobe where they said my HD's and a couple of Library folders (Adobe) didn't have permissions set to Admin (Read & Write), which we fixed. They then told me that my Working Studio HD (internal) needs to be "cleaned up" - defragged etc - as there were so many files on the HD (and there are, I'm a photographer, so I have tens of thousands of individual photo files on the HD), that Lightroom is taking a long time, and sometimes is unable, to synchronize and catalog the folders. It doesn't sound right to me, but that's what I'm being told.

Mac Pro, 2.66Ghz, Quad-core, 24 GB RAM, OS 10.8.5

Lightroom 5.2

I have a 650 GB internal HD with the system and regular HD files.

The HD Adobe is suggesting I need to "clean" is a 3 TB internal HD, 1.54 TB in use, 1.46 TB free.

I know Apple and prevailing wisdom is that you don't need to "clean" HD's but Adobe is basically forcing my hand here. Till I attempt to clean the HD and see if that fixes the issue, they won't help further.

As I said above, I am seeing an overall slowdown on the whole system. Could the OS be attempting to synchronize folders and files in the background and bogging everything down??

Thanks for any help or advise.

Mac Pro, OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5), 2.66 GHz, Quad Core Intel, 24 GB RA

Posted on Nov 4, 2013 2:08 PM

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Answer 1

The hatter

Level 9

60,990 points

Nov 4, 2013 2:19 PM in response to nickjb

3TB drives are normally green, and not good for performance.

What you do want if you can swing it, gradually -

256GB SSD for system on SATA II (or larger)

256-500GB SSD on Sonnet Tempo Pro PCIe (can handle two and supports 900MB/sec) to hold Lightroom and / or Aperture.

Same can be used to create a fast scratch volume for CS6.

We organize, we have a dedicated system boot drive with ONLY the OS and Applications, and I leave 3GB (home account folder's "Library" - and every thing else goes to drive #2 for docs, data, media and non-Aperture/LR5.

Dedicated SSDs for system and L5.

About using the storage drive bays and limited bandwidth to best use, which is why iPhhoto, L5, Aperture and scratch go on PCIe cards.

I suspect your system has old left over s from 10.6.8 and before that are causing some of this too. A clean inst all on a new SSD of 10.8.5 and then use Setup Assistant to import some of the old system stuff.

Anything that use to rely on Rosetta to handle PowerPC apps, code and plugins and drivers have to be rided and t here are some 3rd party programs or utilities to avoid. So maybe look there too.

Spread your photo library on one drive or SSD, and L5 catalogue on another. Works for large iPhoto and other apps.

If you have not visited the following site, he is also a huge upgrader and photographer

http://www.macperformanceguide.com

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Answer 2

nickjb Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 4, 2013 2:39 PM in response to The hatter

So you think the issue is on my System drive?

Right now I'm not able to invest in SSD's. Wish I could, but not going to happen at the moment. I know http://www.macperformanceguide.com and I must admit I'm a little wary of how he "splits" the system and home account across 2 drives.

I think right now I need to see if "cleaning" or de-fragging the HD with my photo files does anything, then I can move onto looking at the system. I really don't want to have to spend a whole day doing a clean install unless I have no choice.

Thanks!

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Answer 3

Linc Davis

Level 10

209,547 points

Nov 4, 2013 5:47 PM in response to nickjb

If you believe Adobe's theory (which I don't), you can defragment the volume simply by erasing it and restoring the data from a backup.

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