External Hard Drive incredibly slow after High Sierra

I uses Image2Icon, so with the movie covers I use the 'DVD' thumbnail, with my graphic design work too... with album covers I design, I use the 'CD' thumbnail, and then for different folders I use the circle with the white boarder, just to make it all look neater and I can see folders better.

Totally agree, Apple should 100% have this sort of thing already available.

I've just made the 2 bug reports, i'm in 2 minds right now whether to upgrade or not, fair enough I can live without the custom thumbnails for a bit (if Image2Icon doesn't work), but if current ones still take ages to load or transferring files from the desktop to an EHD still take 35-45 minutes for 1 file then I might end up throwing this out the window, as it isn't an easy process having to back everything up and then downgrade YET AGAIN and then have to get all my files back and apps back etc etc.

But with my font issue at the moment on Sierra... it's driving me nuts.

It seems to be all about new Laptops, Phones and iPads now, even the look of the iMacs remain the same, they could at least make the black surround around the screen smaller, fair enough they made the screen itself thinner compared to the thicker models but still, looking from the front, it's still the same, and as you said regarding the OS's, its bug after bug at times, so yeah... still in 2 minds what to do right now, if I upgrade again then it MIGHT all work for me, happy days, but on the other hand the update might not fix things for me and the custom thumbnails from that app might not work properly, but on the other hand if I do upgrade then at least I can view websites properly without the Sierra font issue I got, argh!

I wrote here some weeks ago that i was experiencing the same problem. Then I updated OSX and I wrote that the problem was fixed. Well, it's not fixed at all. The mac returned to be incredibly slow on external HDs. And it's not just that icons loading... I can't work on external HD files. I must copy them on my internal HD SSD otherwise it's impossible to work! A Photoshop file (300MB) takes 2 minutes to be opened from the external HD while once copied on the internal HD it takes less than 8 seconds. Very disappointing.

Same here...-- I still have the same issue, and any Apple help I call, I get the reply that all is good on their side, it is my external drives, it is my installation, it is my apps I installed... has NOTHING do to with OS X or apple itself. EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING!

I have several RAIDS, and usually copying a file of a few GB takes seconds,... now it is minutes! Working in Lightroom is a pain now, as Lightroom can needs the data when accessing external Media... it is so so slow, you just sit here and do not know what to do!!!!!

Amazing that the burden is on us to explain in detail the issue. Hey Devs, try to add a custom icon to a video file and you will see what everyone is talking about. How hard is that? You want a detail? OK. Click on a file. When the file is highlighted you see a shaded square. When you add a custom icon, it fills the entire square and distorts the image. Now go and do it yourself.

I'm not sure, but I think I may have a similar problem.

Ever since the update to High Sierra, attempting to save anything to USB is extremely slow.

Doesn't matter if it is a rotating hard drive or flash memory. I have tried USB2 & USB 3 drives with no difference.

I cannot sync iTunes to my old phone nor my brand new phone without it stalling and having to restart iOS.

I just backed up my old phone using iTunes on a USB cable. Took about 15m to do the initial encrypted backup, then around three hours to copy it back to the new phone.

Reading from USB is a little slow, writing via USB is mind numbingly slow. USB is now pretty much unusable.

Please people stop harassing the OP. I have the exact same problem and no APFS and not a bad hard drive. We are looking for suggestions on how to fix this. Loading folders seems to be extremely slow while copying etc. is at normal speed.

I agree with you. It's not your drive. I use a zip drive for simple excel budget spread sheet. After downloading high sierra a few days ago this drive runs and runs about 2 min after adding just 1 or 2 cells of digits. I get the same notices. Verifying file, finder using drive, spinning color wheel etc. I have many zip disks and all run the same. It's not rocket science just software. After a few minutes of running the drive will eject. Again why the slowdown?

I have exactly the same issue with my High Sierra with my WD My Passport. I don't know Terminal commands; may i request you to mention the exact commands which helped solve your issue, so that i can copy-paste and run in terminal. Many thanks.

I really do not think it is the HDD failing.

Don't assume. Determine. Until you do, we're both guessing.

Until you do something you're not helping fix whatever is wrong with your Mac. It's not reasonable to expect others to help you either.

It shouldn't take minutes. 50 icons should take a few seconds at most. I don't know if the fact they're videos has any bearing on that though.