Level 1

52 points

External Hard Drive incredibly slow after High Sierra

Absolutely fuming isn't the word, ever since Apple stopped making us pay for updates they have been buggy garbage.

Rant over: I'm experiencing a very slow external HDD which is used for files after this update. If I do not have it connected, my iMac works fine. As soon as I connect it and want to browse, it freezes a lot, takes an age to load contents, sometimes even taking 2 minutes. I thought maybe it was because it is indexing, I left it for several hours but it still wont work properly.

Activity Monitor shows high CPU usage with kernal task & iconserviceagent when trying to load these folders, the HDD also makes a lot of noise as if it's under high load.

I've tried upgrading it to APFS which can be done on a HDD, no idea why people say it cannot be done as it has been done with mine! - still no improvement.

Really no idea why I trusted another update, think i'll leave it next time, Sierra brought bugs and High Sierra has totally ruined my computer. My iMac is 21.5 late 2013 with an SSD upgrade. My external HDD is a 3TB Seagate HDD.

Any help, or people with the same issues?

iMac

Posted on Sep 26, 2017 6:08 AM

164 replies

ztripz

Level 1

12 points

Feb 2, 2018 1:53 PM in response to gola

There were suggestions made throughout the 11 pages of this thread. What have you tried? What were the results?

pimeeen

Level 1

8 points

Feb 3, 2018 9:44 PM in response to J4MMYz

Same problem here.. i just copy paste to my hdd on macos and its very slow.. but on bootcamp its fine

Dreambox

Level 1

4 points

Feb 28, 2018 2:50 AM in response to J4MMYz

The same problem :-(((((

Mar 11, 2018 11:22 AM in response to J4MMYz

😟 😟 I have the same problem

putnik

Level 4

1,185 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:21 AM in response to J4MMYz

You might try starting in Safe Mode, to see if it is a third party app that is causing the problem. (Hold the Shift key at the startup chime). The startup will be slow in this, because it does some checks.

John Galt

Level 10

155,222 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:27 AM in response to J4MMYz

How do you know that external hard disk drive is working as it should? The symptoms you describe are consistent with disk failure.

I haven't experienced what you're describing, even with APSF formatted external hard disks.

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:36 AM in response to John Galt

Well it might be a very big coincidence if my HDD is failing, as it was 100% fine right before I installed High Sierra yesterday. It also slows down my computer whilst it tries loading files, which then freezes my computer even if I don't have the window open on the HDD. As I said, once I turn the HDD off everything is fine.

If I try opening a video, I get a window with "verifying" in it, after about 30 seconds the video finally opens. It happens sometimes, sometimes not. Once it's verified a video, it wont verify that video again until the HDD is restarted.

Copying a file off the HDD to my SSD also is unbelievable, 500MB takes around 30 mins.

I restarted my iMac around 20 mins ago, the HDD is working fine in some areas now they have loaded, but if I try opening folders I haven't opened yet chaos happens again. I can't understand this

John Galt

Level 10

155,222 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:40 AM in response to J4MMYz

When traditional rotating hard disks fail, they usually fail after a lot of activity.

Replace it with one known to be operationally intact, and you will have your answer.

Needless to say, if you are using any non-Apple "anti-virus" junk, various and sundry "cleaning" garbage, non-Apple disk drive "managers", "optimizers" or similarly categorized "utilities", don't. Those things are certain to cause performance degradation, premature failure, or both.

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:40 AM in response to John Galt

I really do not think it is the HDD failing. It's not even a year old, and I do not have any other HDD to try anything else.

In reply to HDD's fail after a lot of activity, how has there been major activity on it? The computer upgraded, not the HDD.

etresoft

Level 9

56,290 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:42 AM in response to J4MMYz

Hello J4MMYz,

It sounds like you have some other software conflict. No one can speculate about what may or may not have been the issue with your external hard drive since you have converted it to APFS. If you do not already have a backup of this disk on HFS+, I strongly urge you do drop whatever else you might be doing and make that backup right now.

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:45 AM in response to etresoft

Thats a joy, Time Capsule filled up yesterday, for some reason unknown to me I decided to wipe it and order a new HDD which comes Friday. Thats whats concerning me now as I do not have a backup so if something goes wrong im done for.

What is the best course of action? Hopefully Apple will have a fix for this?

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 26, 2017 6:53 AM in response to J4MMYz

I've just tried copying a file from the HDD to the iMac, it was very fast this time. Also, moving it back on was also fast. It's still incredibly slow to load folder contents I haven't opened yet though, and im sure once I restart the HDD it will have to catch up all over again. Nightmare.

Just tried opening another folder, I got the spinning wheel and it froze, had to force quit Finder as it said "not responding"

This is really getting on my nerves, and I'm worrying that leaving the HDD on + connected was a bad idea when updating, but surely this shouldn't of affected it?

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 26, 2017 7:59 AM in response to etresoft

How many times do I have to say this is not my HDD's problem, but obviously software? Why would my HDD suddenly start failing directly after the High Sierra update? Either a coincidence or an obvious software issue, as things aren't loading properly and causing a huge amount of load on my CPU. If the HDD was failing it just wouldn't be working or even booting, and would be clicking every few seconds, it's not clicking - it's noisy as if it's under load which is normal! Don't tell me thats a HDD failing either as my other 2011 iMac is very noisy and has been since new.

As for stop posting on the internet, good idea. This is getting me nowhere, thanks for everyones input.

John Galt

Level 10

155,222 points

Sep 26, 2017 8:30 AM in response to J4MMYz

Disk Utility's First Aid function is generally unhelpful, and given Apple's near-abandonment of traditional rotating hard disk drives I'm not expecting that to change.

My iMac is 21.5 late 2013 with an SSD upgrade.

I never asked which model SSD. The only ones I use, can recommend, and confirm work well with High Sierra are those manufactured by OWC / MacSales, specifically their Mercury Extreme Pro models, the oldest of which are now well beyond their five year warranty. Problems with them are literally unheard of. Certain other manufacturers' SSDs are notorious for premature and sudden failure.

I realize the problems disappear after disconnecting the external HDD but bear in mind its contents are being indexed by Spotlight on the startup volume, so the internal SSD could be a contributing factor.

Asking Apple for help with aftermarket SSDs will be a waste of time. They'll hang up on you, figuratively if not literally.

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 26, 2017 8:40 AM in response to John Galt

I got my iMac upgraded around 2 years ago to an SSD as I had a 5,400rpm HDD which was hellish slow. The SSD is a Kingston 250GB SSD, and hasn't missed a beat. I very much hope this isn't the cause to my issues, I would doubt. I'm still pointing the finger to software, but theres nothing I can do I guess but hope Apple get reports for the same issues and hopefully a therefore fix, or maybe my HDD is still indexing? How long should indexing take? Theres around 1.81TB of stuff on the HDD.

A quick update: I've noticed the HDD seems to be speeding up a little now, things aren't taking half as long but still are taking longer than they should, is it perhaps an indexing issue?

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External Hard Drive incredibly slow after High Sierra