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

Top-ranking reply

Pichini13

Level 1

4 points

Posted on Sep 26, 2017 5:03 PM

You can try clearing the icon cache:

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

/Library/Caches/com.apple.iconservices.store

Right-click or control-click the highlighted line and select

Services ▹ Reveal in Finder (or just Reveal)

from the contextual menu.* A folder should open with an item selected. Move the selected item to the Trash. You may be prompted for your administrator login password. Restart the computer and empty the Trash.

*If you don't see the contextual menu item, copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C. In the Finder, select

Go ▹ Go to Folder...

from the menu bar and paste into the box that opens by pressing command-V. You won't see what you pasted because a line break is included. Press return.

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164 replies

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 26, 2017 11:30 AM in response to John Galt

I appreciate that suggestion but thats far beyond my comfort zone, plus I do not have any other HDD I can use.

John Galt

Level 10

155,270 points

Sep 26, 2017 11:33 AM in response to J4MMYz

I understand. Having one would enable you to explore some troubleshooting options though.

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 26, 2017 3:28 PM in response to putnik

Already tried excluding Spotlight, hasn't changed anything.

John Galt

Level 10

155,270 points

Sep 26, 2017 3:45 PM in response to J4MMYz

... I do not have any 3rd party cleaning software.

The report you posted disagrees with you.

... and no it's most obviously not the HDD's fault either and is not failing.

I disagree with you.

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 27, 2017 2:59 AM in response to Pichini13

Hi Pichini13,

Ahh yes I have already tried this before, but it didn't change anything. I just tried again, and still no improvement. I'm now sending the bug report.

Sep 27, 2017 11:52 AM in response to J4MMYz

Well, for me things went from bad to worse.

Now it's using ungodly amounts of resources and nothing I do works to terminate the process, it just starts again.

etresoft

Level 9

56,326 points

Sep 27, 2017 1:06 PM in response to J4MMYz

Let's say, hypothetically speaking, someone wanted to re-create this bug. What are the necessary steps?

1) Attach an external HDD with custom file and/or folder icons

Is that all there is to it?

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Sep 27, 2017 1:50 PM in response to etresoft

Yeah, what Pichini13 said. I’ve noticed time capsule is also very slow too. Must be an external hard drive issue

J4MMYz Author

Level 1

52 points

Oct 11, 2017 12:27 PM in response to J4MMYz

Great news all, I got a reply back from Apple bug report and they’ve located the issue and it should be fixed soon, so to everyone with this issue it will be fixed.

ANobre

Level 1

4 points

Oct 23, 2017 11:06 AM in response to J4MMYz

holy ****! I'm spending hours moving 1TB of files to another drives to format my HDD using exFAT file system... Will be a waste of time?

DNSBRU

Level 1

4 points

Oct 23, 2017 12:07 PM in response to -Marc__

It works! Thank you for the instructions, you've been a huge help. 🙂

-Marc__

Level 1

98 points

Oct 23, 2017 12:12 PM in response to nsabbath

it will delete the icons not the folders right ?

Right.

Oct 25, 2017 8:07 AM in response to J4MMYz

That is an extreme option but thank you for your instructions, I am sure they will be helpful to many. I will wait for a fix, hoping it will not take too long...

nvdd

Level 1

4 points

Jan 6, 2018 3:03 AM in response to J4MMYz

Are you guys still having problems? I just got an email from Apple dev saying "Can you please clarify what problems exist with the current icons, as well as a sysdiagnose?" I'm not sure what to reply

Jan 8, 2018 2:05 PM in response to nick12202

Thankfully i've had no issues with the thumbnails, I had the problem with transfer speeds but i'm able to add custom icons to movie files with no problem.

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External Hard Drive incredibly slow after High Sierra