Fusion Drive going very slow

Question

Fusion Drive going very slow

I recently purchased a new iMac to replace my Mac Pro 1,1 and maxed it out, including opting for the 3TB Fusion Drive but am wondering if I have either too high expectations for the performance or if something may be wrong. When working in any number of applications (typically Adobe's CC suite... Illustratrator, Photoshop, InDesign, etc.) and going to save a file, when I am presented with the Save modal it is frequently a full 20 seconds before the Finder displays all of the filesystem (folders, files, etc.). That seems excessively long and not at all what I was expecting performance-wise.

The drive isn't remotely full with well over 80% of the space remaining and all tests that I have run on the drives in Disk Utility come up with little more than the occasional permission repair need, but no more than usual.

Anything more I might do to improve performance? Is this typical?

TIA!

iMac, iOS 7.0.3, 3.5 GHz, 3TB Fusion Drive, 32GB RAM

Posted on Nov 14, 2013 12:37 PM

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Answer 1

ssls6

Level 4

2,879 points

Nov 14, 2013 12:39 PM in response to Richard Benson2

Are you on Mavericks and do you have an external drive connected? Do you hear it spin up when you go to save?

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Answer 2

Nov 14, 2013 12:43 PM in response to ssls6

Yes, I am on Mavericks and I have a Thunderbolt 10TB RAID attached. I hadn't noticed an associated spin up sound when accessing the Fusion Drive but can keep an ear out for it (which isn't difficult as it makes a decent amount of noise when spinning up).

Got an initial thought?

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Answer 3

ssls6

Level 4

2,879 points

Nov 14, 2013 12:55 PM in response to Richard Benson2

Yeah I do but not a solution. I've noticed with my Mac Pro and several externals that Mavericks (remember it is a x.x.0 release) likes to take several seconds to access the drive hierarchy. Your fusion is probably not the blame but you can always test it by using blackmagic (in the app store) or try and save a few times and see if the 2nd attempt is much faster than the first.

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Answer 4

Nov 14, 2013 12:57 PM in response to ssls6

Ah good point... I was wondering if it might be a caching thing actually because after that initial 20 second delay, the next few saves tend to be much faster. Still, those 20 second hangs are really chafing.

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Answer 5

Nov 14, 2013 12:59 PM in response to Richard Benson2

As a test you can also unplug your externals and try this. If you don;t notice the delay you at least know it is not the fusion drive.

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Answer 6

Nov 14, 2013 1:12 PM in response to Frank Caggiano

OK, I can give that a shot and see...

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Answer 7

Dec 9, 2013 11:56 AM in response to Frank Caggiano

OK, finally got an opportunity to test this out and unplugged the Thunderbolt external... unfortunately, the issue persists. Without exaggeration I am looking at a 15-20 second delay for the filesystem to display when saving a file from a given application, be it Photoshop, Illustrator, Mail, etc.

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Answer 8

Dec 9, 2013 12:41 PM in response to ssls6

I'm not sure what a good speed for a Fusion Drive may be, but here are the average results I got when running the test:

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Answer 9

Dec 9, 2013 1:12 PM in response to Richard Benson2

You have 90 days of free phone tech support. Why not call tech support & tell them about your concerns?

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Answer 10

Dec 9, 2013 1:15 PM in response to Baby-Boomer-USofA

True... I also have the extended warranty... Been used to having to (and wanting to) figure these things out for myself for so long I had pretty much forgotten about that. Will give them a holler to see if they have any potential remedies but if anyone else has further ideas feel free to let me know! Much appreciated!

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Answer 11

Dec 18, 2013 9:47 AM in response to Richard Benson2

Hi there Richard,

Ive also taken delivery of a fully loaded iMac this week. We opted for the 3TB fusion drive.

I have to agree with you in the fact that it aint really blowing my socks off. It takes around 25 secs for the OS to boot.

On my outdated 2007 Blackbook running Lion it takes a mere 18 seconds!! I installed a Seagate Momentus SSHD into that thing and for normal surfing and everyday tasks I really cannot fault it. I have to hand it to Seagate and their claims that the SSHD learns what you use and how often. Safari and Chrome boot extremely fast, much like if I was running an pure SSD.

In comparison the iMac when I freshly open Safari and Chrome I get around 3-4 bounces of the icon in the dock before it finally opens and even then the rendering of the page isnt as quick as my Blackbook. Safari is the slowest of any browser.

Ill stick my full config down below and we can compare notes.

Just as a matter of interest I opted for standard 8GB RAM from Apple. When it arrived I put a further 16GB (2x 8GB) into the Mac giving a total 24GB RAM. As far as Im aware that shouldn't affect the Mac. It shows Ok in About my Mac and system report. I may take out the 2x4GB sticks tonight to see if that has any effect.

Ill keep my eye on this post. The Fusion Drive has been a bit underwhelming I have to say.

Regards

Stu

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Answer 12

Dec 18, 2013 2:16 PM in response to Cpl BadBoy

Sounds like we are in a similar boat. I have the 3TB Fusion Drive and 32GB of RAM and the top of the line processor... it takes upwards of 20-30 seconds to boot for me too but where the real issue manifests and annoys and slows down my productivity is in the Save modals when it takes a similar amount of time to just render the filesystem in the window.

I've contacted Apple Support and they have me re-indexing the machine to see if that might fix it. I'll let you know if it seems to fix the issue or not.

I wonder what the options for swapping out the Fusion Drive for a regular 'ol SSD might be if this doesn't solve the issue. I suppose I could just manage my working files on a thunderbolt drive since they are likely to exceed the storage capacity of most SSDs. First Mac I've owned in over a decade of Mac ownership that hasn't gone like blue blazes right out of the box... pretty disappointed.

Don't even get me started on weird Maveicks bugs like copy and paste or drag and drop ceasing to work altogether, attachments not saving down from Mail, Magic Mouse interaction dropouts and on and on... I mentioned all this to Apple Support but they didn't seem to think it was either related or of any particular concern. Still, the sum total experience hasn't been a great one thus far. Fingers crossed on the re-index.

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Answer 13

Jan 4, 2014 6:25 AM in response to Richard Benson2

Any updates to this post? Any update from what the Apple people discovered? I've got the same issue and it's not computer specific, all of my Mavericks Mac's have the problem (at least three of four, haven't tested the 4th...)... that is not coincidence...

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Answer 14

Jan 4, 2014 11:12 AM in response to instaimage

I'm afriad not, at least not as yet... They've had me re-index the drive a few times and re-install the OS but the issue persists and the next step is evidently a clean re-install. I don't have high hopes that that will resolve the issue, and your email compounds that. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps the Fusion drive is not a good solution for the sort of usage I make of it since I can work on quite a few large files just in the course of a single day.

I'll post back if the clean re-install works, but it may take a little time as I will have quite a few apps to re-download and re-install.

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Answer 15

joeylake

Level 1

10 points

Jan 8, 2014 1:44 PM in response to Richard Benson2

I have a similar situation - at least I believe it's similar.

I experience a delay in situations where I have to upload, and a dialog box pops up showing the files takes about 20 seconds or so for it to load the files that are in the finder. I fear my description may not be the best - I wonder if it makes sense to take some screenshots or something.

I have only noticed it since Mavericks has been installed.

I have a late 2012 iMac with the 1TB Fusion -

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