Slow boot time after update to Mojave - External SSD

Samsung T5 is a USB 3.1 with a USB-C port (connector looks like Thunderbolt v3, but connection is only USB). See: https://www.samsung.com/us/computing/memory-storage/portable-solid-state-drives/ portable-ssd-t5-1tb-mu-pa1t0b-am/#specs

Thunderbolt drives are listed under "SATA /SATA Express" section of System Information with these fields:

Medium Type: Solid State

Removable Media: No

TRIM Support: Yes/No

S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

One more unhappy customer here. iMac 27” (late 2013) / Samsung 840 PRO External USB3 drive.

On High Sierra my boot time was less than a minute. Then I reformatted the external SSD and did clean Mojave install. Now it takes 117 seconds until the Apple logo is displayed. Total boot time is around 145 seconds now.

Can you or anyone comment on stability so far in doing this? The Paragon APFS to HFS converter. Also the last update did not fix this issue and I'm beginning to think Apple is not going to do anything about this in future updates.

Hi, if you’re referring to cloning the HDD with Mojave to SDD with HFS+ format (actually my post although maybe Alex posted similar), I have been running that for few weeks now with no problems, boot time if anything is even quicker that just after clone. As you say any risk is mine but all is backed up on old WD external HDD and in the cloud so I should be safe!

Thanks - I really appreciate the reply. But I don't think this will work. I have 2TB of data on my hard drive and the SSD is only 256GB. And they are set up as a single fusion drive, formatted with APFS. I don't think what you describe is do-able with my setup.

I'm also starting to think that there won't be any fix for this. Yet I don't think either that there's a special attitude behind not fixing it, I would say that it's simply too low a priority for Apple.

The enclosure is a Akitio TB3 Thunderbay mini, but it works fine inside OSX. Never crashed there. My issues are just startup and shutdown. Always booting off internal set as startup drive. In the Akitio I have 4 850's of various sizes.

Thunderbolt AHCI Controller:

Vendor: Thunderbolt

Product: AHCI Controller

Link Speed: 6 Gigabit

Negotiated Link Speed: 6 Gigabit

Physical Interconnect: SATA

Description: AHCI Version 1.31 Supported

Samsung SSD 850 EVO 4TB:

Capacity: 4 TB (4,000,787,030,016 bytes)

Model: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 4TB

Revision: EMT02B6Q

Serial Number: S2RSNX0J701488F

Native Command Queuing: Yes

Queue Depth: 32

Removable Media: No

Detachable Drive: No

BSD Name: disk1

Medium Type: Solid State

TRIM Support: No

Partition Map Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)

S.M.A.R.T. status: Verified

Volumes:

EFI:

Capacity: 209.7 MB (209,715,200 bytes)

File System: MS-DOS FAT32

BSD Name: disk1s1

Content: EFI

Volume UUID: 0E239BC6-F960-3107-89CF-1C97F78BB46B

disk1s2:

OK cool, so that's a major advantage over the Delock enclosure then, even if the LaCie is somewhat bigger than the Delock.

By the way, does anyone know about other Thunderbolt enclosure alternatives? Could be a good idea to get an overview about what's on the market as it seems we all slowly start to realize that this bug is not something that Apple will fix anytime soon...

Great finds and advice for the solutions. It's not like I don't have the money, I can buy these at a whim, but I think it's incredibly ridiculous that Apple is not going to fix this. We now have to spend money to fix an Apple Mac OS BUG.

I think the AKITIO Thunderbolt solution is not as good for stationary use as the Delock/LaCie enclosures - simply because it's not an enclosure. You still need to occupy a USB port, meaning you need two cable connections to your Mac (USB and TB) - apart from the cable between between the adapter and the SSD. Also, you have two devices, the adapter AND the ("naked") SSD lying around on the table at the rear side of your Mac. Plus, the Thunderbolt cable is very short, it's 10cm of which only 6cm are flexible, so the adapter will literally be hanging on the TB connector of an iMac.

I think so far, the LaCie solution desribed a few posts above is the most practical one so far, and it comes at approx. the same cost as the Akitio adapter (at least here in Germany). Only one single cable connection is used (the included TB cable) without the need for an additional power supply USB cable connection. The downside here is the big "rugged" orange enclosure design which might look a a bit stupid connected to an otherwise quite elegant iMac.

The Delock solution looks quite good on the iMac, but here the major disadvantage is the need for an additional power supply (which is included though), meaning another cable connection. If there was a combination of LaCie/Delock, meaning a nice and small more "Mac style" enclosure (like the Delock) that doesn't need a power supply (like the LaCie), then that would be something I'd seriously consider.

Indeed, the Akitio Thunderbolt cable is very short, but it's not looking that bad behind my Macmini (it's aluminium with white cable). For an iMac you will need a stand (i.e. a book) to put in on. The advantage of Akitio is lower price (~91 USD) and that I you can connect two HDDs to a single Thunderbolt port (I just hooked two of my existing USB/eSata enclosures with their long eSata cables).

The Rugged LaCie costs (~130 USD) and has a little longer, but orange Thunderbolt cable. May be you can manage to put the drive on your desktop below your iMac, but not too far from it. You must trow the included 1TB HDD and connect only one HDD to a Thunderbolt port.

Can anyone with LaCie Rugged confirm if your SSD SMART parameters are OK especially when machine goes to sleep (look for changes of "Unsafe shutdown count" and "UDMA CRC Error count")?

in trial version of drivedx i found only CRC Error Count

here is what it says

id - 199

name - CRC Error Count

Type: life-span indicator, online

Raw Value - 0

Value - Current:100 Worst:100 Treshold:0

Status - 100% OK

i cant see anything else in that crc report window

Same problem here.

I have an 2017 iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017) with an Samsung 850 EVO 2TB in an 2,5" Event EW7070 USB 3.1 enclosure.

Connected with an usb-c > usb-c cable.

Tried it also with an usb-c > usb-a cable, but the same problem.

After boot I have to wait 2~4 minutes for the Apple logo, after that it is starting normal.

I'm sorry but the "solution" provided by the OP is not a solution. It is not acceptable that an OS update causes normal external SSDs to essentially stop working. This is nearly the last straw for me with Apple. They simply have no consideration for their customers and their products are no longer superior enough to justify such poor behavior. Apple was once the brand that "just works" -- that is no longer the case.

I've been considering buying a thunderbolt enclosure for a few weeks. I've doubts that Apple solves this problem in the short term.

I've an IMac Late 2003 with thunderbolt 1. I'm not sure to buy a Thunderbolt 1/2 enclosure. I think it's a rather obsolete technology that's being replaced by Thunderbolt 3. I think it would be better to buy a Thunderbolt 3 enclosure, also thinking about a possible future (not near) update of my IMac.

Someone has experience in using the Apple adapter Thunderbolt2 <-> Thunderbolt3?

It's very expensive, but it seems the only one that is bidirectional (connecting Thunderbolt 3 devices to Thunderbolt1/2 computers)