Slow boot time after update to Mojave - External SSD

I can confirm that just moving my external SSD from USB to Thunderbolt enclosure solves the delay at Mojave startup. I use Delock 42510 (85 EUR at amazon.it + 11 EUR Standard shipping with DHL road) and an Apple Thunderbolt cable (35 EUR).

In my opinion UEFI bootloader either tries to recognize the drive as SSD or wants to read its Firmware revision. This looks like a problem in UEFI and most probably is related to the limit that Apple put on external HDDs to use APFS last year.

Looking at System Information and DriveDX logs, I found several differences. In the Thunderbolt enclosure, drive is recognized as SSD with its Firmware revision, non-Removable, with native S.M.A.R.T. support, Bus Type = SATA, ATA Features = 0x-1, SATA Features = 0x2e. TRIM is not enabled.

In the USB enclosure, drive is not recognized as SSD, it's Removable, there is no Firmware revision, no native S.M.A.R.T. support, Bus Type = USB, ATA Features = 0x20, SATA Features = 0x-1. TRIM is not supported.

I want to add a note about Delock 42510 case. My 2.5'' 9mm SSD drive reaches ~39-40 C temperature (with 20 C ambient and drive in idle state). In my 3.5'' USB case it was ~30 C and reached 40 only when I copy something. So, Delock is not very good in removing heat for thin drives and will need some thermal gap filling pads.

miketoreno wrote:

You can enable trim support for external SSD with thunderbolt-enclosures.

Terminal: sudo trimforce enable

...yes, you can try that, but opinions differ about the advantages/disadvantages when doing so. Some say enabling TRIM actually slowed down their boot process/overall performance, others say it actually helped.

I did enable trim, but noticed that it took 25 sec. at next startup. You can look at console.log to see how long is trim taking at boot time. To do so, after the boot you need to collect the log info in a file. I use similar to this command:

sudo log collect --output ~/Documents/log.logarchive --last 1h

Then double click on the produced log.logarchive file in your Documents folder, show "All Messages" and search for "spaceman" or "trim". Log command has a "show" switch, but I'm not familiar how to use it, yet.

With trim disabled it takes 0 sec., but it shows thousands of blocks awaiting trim. So, I will look if that slows down boot process too much and will disable trim.

That's really interesting! From what I've read on a couple of websites, TRIM is not really necessary with current SSDs these days because they all have a feature called "garbage collection" directly built into their firmware which takes care of those blocks... I am not really an expert in these matters myself though.....

I activated trim on my crucial SSD (external) and it had no effect on the boot time. I also can not see any change in the hardware inspector window. Maybe it was just rejected on activation. I still need about 3 Minutes until the iMac is booting.

MadFisi wrote:

I activated trim on my crucial SSD (external) and it had no effect on the boot time. I also can not see any change in the hardware inspector window. Maybe it was just rejected on activation. I still need about 3 Minutes until the iMac is booting.

...is your SSD connected via USB or via Thunderbolt? If it's connected via USB, then that's normal. TRIM isn't supported via USB, so you continue to have the same problem we all have in this thread....!

I have the same slow boot/black screen before the apple logo appear.

Mac (21.5-inch, Mid 2014), 1,4 GHz Intel Core i5, 8 GB 1600 MHz DDR3 with external SSD inside an enclosure with USB.

So, I had to reinstall Maverics, then upgrade to High Sierra. Everything has gone, not able to get anything from Time Machine for the reason I have a newer version of MacOS on it.

I had to reinstall anything from scratch.

I am sure Apple will do a fix for this issue. We are a lot of Customers with this issue.

Have a nice day everyone !

HI, I 'shut down' my Mac Mini last night. This morning, disconnected power cable for 30+ seconds (to reset the SMC controller), plugged back in and pressed the main power button to start up. Boot time around 20-30sec and a vast improvement from the previous startup times, which averaged around 2-3 minutes. Still like Mojave though...

For those interesting if trim adds a delay at boot time, issue the following command in the Terminal:

log show --predicate 'eventMessage BEGINSWITH "spaceman"' --last boot

TRIM works only on internal and Thuderbolt drives. But even for USB drives kernel scans for free blocks and as it seems try to send trim command.

Here is an example when my SSD was in USB case:

spaceman_trim_free_blocks:3245: scan took 0.072297 s, trims took 0.000000 s

Then in the Thunderbolt case with disabled trim (almost the same as USB):

After the "sudo trimforce enable" command, there was ~25 sec. delay at boot:

Today, log shows very little delay at boot:

As usual! Apple does a mess leaving users completely alone with no info, no updates, no suggestions other than the usual reset pram or other silliness like that...

When the f**K will you be SERIOUS about the issues of OS, about the evident programmed obsolescence of devices, about all the replaceable parts hidden in the market so we have to buy new machines due to minimum and easily solvable damages to the ones we already have?
Since the day after Mojave distribution, 90% of users in the whole world started to face an incredibly slow boot time and all you are able to suggest is reset the pram?
Are you joking guys???
Move your ***** and resolve this incredible bug!!!

I suggest to stay calm nevertheless. Between developer betas, public betas and the final release version, features and properties are being added and removed back and forth all the time as everybody knows. I think it's pretty safe to assume that macOS 10.14.1 will be released within the next 10 days because the fourth pre-release version already went to the developers a couple of days ago. Then we'll see, but not just now.

If our problem should really persist with 10.14.1, I will seriously consider buying a Thunderbolt enclosure after all. It's not even the money that bugs me most about this (although paying 140 USD for the enclosure and a cable just to get back to the way things were before Mojave is really bad news), it's rather the fact that the enclosure needs a separate power supply (even if this is included with the enclosure). This means another power cord hanging from the back of my iMac, another power socket occupied underneath my desk and so on.

Well, let's hope for the best and a speedy release of 10.14.1 in order to be clear about things.

well said danbest.

I can understand, everyone here is going through same thoughts. You voiced them more openly.

Fo the time being there is a fix I am using if anyone likes it.

Since there is only issue with the slow boot. rest of the performance is not very worst affected, so i programe my mac to schedule start every morning 7 am and when i go to work I just have to enter the PW and it take just 5-10 sec to start.

I am sure many of us know about this. in any case, here you can enable this

go to

-->system preferences-->energy saver-->click Schedule (at the right bottom corner)-->check start up or wake

and select the day and time as per your convenience.

I did weekdays at 7 am, so every morning when I reach the work around 8: am, i just have to enter the pW and my mac start immediately.

hope it helps.

Thanks

I am sure that most people here are actually not upset because of the actual loss of 3-4 minutes work or leisure time but because of the fact that we now have a piece of hardware that at least once was way more expensive than average - and now this piece of hardware needs 3-4 minutes to boot itself which really is not acceptable.

I've opened a ticket with Apple support.

What they said about this issue is that they cannot guarantee that external drive from other vendor will work.

What a great answer from a great vendor!!!😠 Is this what you expect?

Let's think on your next buy.... Apple or Pear?