External disk slowing down Spotlight

I have an external (FireWire) disk plugged into my Mac for Time Machine. But every time I do a Spotlight search from the Spotlight menu item (Cmd-Space) there's a delay of around 5 seconds while my external disk spins up.
Is there any way to stop or prevent this?
At the moment I've set up Automator to automatically unmount the disk in the morning & then mount it again in the evening (so I don't have the problem when I'm working on the computer) which stops me from the slow down.
But ideally I'd like to have the disk connected with Time Machine working all the time, but without the slowdown.

the only thing I can recommend is to exclude that drive from Spotlight searches.
There is absolutely no reason to have a TM drive indexed by Spotlight anyway.
To exclude it from Spotlight, add it to the privacy tab in spotlight system preferences.

Similar Messages

External monitor slowing down my MacBook pro

I recently hooked up a brand new external Acer G205HV monitor to my 15" MacBook Pro (4gb RAM) using the mini display port to DVI adapter from Apple. I have an GeForce 9400M graphics card with 256mb ram. Whenever I have the monitor plugged in it slows down my computer tremendously. When I do not use the monitor, my laptop is back to being lightening fast.
Expose` and the dashboard lag a ton, and basically the internet craps out. I can barely load websites and streaming video has become virtually impossible. I have tried running with the laptop open and in clam mode. Same result. At first I thought I had a virus, which would be very very rare, but after using the laptop without the monitor I realized that the monitor was slowing me down.
The max resolution that I am running the monitor at is 1600x900 @60Hz. The DVI adapter is supposed to support a much higher resolution than this. Is my graphics card the issue? Any help is appreciated. thanks!

I have the same problem with a spring 2008 MacBook (4,1) with 4 GB RAM running 10.5.8. Using a DVI external monitor, the wireless speed drops by at least half and usually more. This is the case whether using a Samsung 2443 BW at home or a Dell at work. I've tried different DVI cables, changing channels from 11 to 1, no difference.
Took it to the local Apple store where they had only a VGA monitor to test with and, strangely, the wireless was unaffected. It was a small ACER monitor, a 15-inch or so, not wide-screen. Have had no other opportunities to try a VGA monitor, as I don't have a mini-DVI to VGA adapter.
But I wonder if there's something there?
Don

Does using an external HD slow down iMovie?

I have stored about 6000 photos on my hard drive. I believe it may be slowing down my computer, so I have thought about buying a separate drive just for iPhoto and iMovie. Would that be a good idea? If so, would I expect the program to run more slowly when working from this external drive? It was suggested to me that I buy the NewerTech ministack V2. That drive is available in a number of sizes. Should I select 320, 400, or 500GB, if I buy that one? Do you have other suggestions? Thanks for any advice you can offer. I am not a techie, I just like to make movies. Miriam

It seems that you're sensibly thinking ahead, and preparing for any trouble!
The external disc(s) wouldn't normally be backed up to .Mac, but if you copy your iPhoto Library and Movies to another destination - as well as to the disc you'll normally keep them on - then you should be well covered.
Your Mercury On the Go drive is probably quite small (60GB or 80GB), so why not use that for your iPhoto Library?
I've got 11,000 photos in my Library, and it uses up 33GB. So you could easily fit your 6,000 photos on your On The Go drive. Moving your iPhoto Library onto that external disc would clear, say, 16GB or so from your internal disc; enough for another hour's worth of DV video editing.
Then you could use a larger capacity external FireWire disc for backups - instead of the On The Go ..and backups would probably run faster - and you could also edit movies on that fast disc, as long as you kept a backup of them on another disc!
Editing movies which are on an external fast FireWire disc generally allows things to run faster, as the internal disc can simultaneously do its own 'housekeeping' duties, or swapping things in and out of memory, or reading bits of program from the internal disc ..while all video data transfers happen exclusively on the external disc.
That's the way professionals edit: always keeping video files on a fast external - or second internal - disc.
The only problem which comes to mind is that some Canon camcorders don't like to be on the FireWire circuit along with any other FW device, such as a separate external disc. If you do have a Canon camcorder, you may need to import to your Mac's internal disc first, then disconnect the Canon camcorder and then copy that imported video to your external disc for editing.
But it's late here, and I gotta go to bed ..bye for now!

External disk spin down

I have a OWC firewire 800 external hard drive. I want to know if there is a way that I can keep it from spinning down so that info can be accessed more readily. After all what's the point of having a high speed external if it has to spin up every time I want to access it?

Go to system preferences / energy saver / sleep and uncheck put the hard disk(s) to sleep when possible

External drive slows down system

I purchased this 27 inch iMac last month. Its loaded. 3 TB HD, 32 GB Ram, 4 TB External Lacie Thunderbolt Drive.
The system slows to a crawl, with beach balls, slowness (I mean REALLY SLOW). I also have errors transferring files from the Lacie to the internal HD.
I got frustrated beecause I thought my files were corrupt (my Adobe lightroom catalog files were reporting as being corrupt). After a day or two of monkeying around, I zeroed in on the Lacie HD as the source of my problems. I reformatted, rebuilt the raid array, and restored from a Drobo....and voila! It worked.
For about an hour. Then, slowness returns. I ran the extended hardware check.....nothing wrong.
I called Lacie tech support. The guy asked me to unplug the drive and the power to it. Plugged everything back in, and voila again! It flew.
30 minutes later, more slowness. I called lacie, and the tech support person suggested I might have a bad thunderbolt cable and offered to send me another one (which will presumably be on the way tomorrow).
Has anyone had this kind of a problem? Do you think the cable might fix the problem? Or do you think the drive is defective?
Thanks
Kenny in NJ

Its not the drive. I have two external drives connected and mine are from Seagate. The problem most likely occurs between the iOS and the USB/Thunderbolt/Firewire connections.
Any response from Apple?

Optical disk slowing down boot time with z77 gd55

I recently hooked up an optical drive to a gd55 motherboard, after the windows 7 logo is formed now there is a 15 or so second long pause that wasn't there before. If i insert a disk into the drive the pause is gone as well. If anyone knows of a setting to stop this please help,

I found another similar to what Wonkanoby found. Perhaps your problem is you may need the firmware update.
HL-DT-ST GH10L DVD-R/RW
If that doesn't do any good then try a different ODD. If new ODD needed newegg.ca has:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289 ~ no
LightScribe
or this which is the model I have and it's been just fine for me, bought it at n'egg USA last year:
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106333 ~ with LighScribe

I upgraded to Maverick system really slowed down, All file access 10-15% slower. Solution?

After I upgraded from Mountian Lion to Maverick (OS10.9) accessing files and directories on external drives slowed down by at least 10 - 15 %. I get the color wheel and a long wait almost 25% of the time. Is there a solution other than downgrading to 10>8?

Fixing a Mavericks Installation Problem
How to manage a failed OS X Mavericks installation | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews.
Try these in order:
1. a. Resetting your Mac's PRAM and NVRAM
    b. Intel-based Macs: Resetting the System Management Controller (SMC)
2. Restart the computer in Safe Mode, then restart again, normally. If this doesn't help, then:
     Boot to the Recovery HD: Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the
     COMMAND and R keys until the Utilities menu screen appears. Alternatively, restart the computer and
     after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager screen appears.
     Select the Recovery HD and click on the downward pointing arrow button.
3. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions: Upon startup select Disk Utility from the Utilities menu. Repair the Hard Drive and Permissions as follows.
When the recovery menu appears select Disk Utility. After DU loads select your hard drive entry (mfgr.'s ID and drive size) from the the left side list. In the DU status area you will see an entry for the S.M.A.R.T. status of the hard drive. If it does not say "Verified" then the hard drive is failing or failed. (SMART status is not reported on external Firewire or USB drives.) If the drive is "Verified" then select your OS X volume from the list on the left (sub-entry below the drive entry,) click on the First Aid tab, then click on the Repair Disk button. If DU reports any errors that have been fixed, then re-run Repair Disk until no errors are reported. If no errors are reported click on the Repair Permissions button. Wait until the operation completes, then quit DU and return to the main menu. Select Restart from the Apple menu.
4. Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks: Reboot from the Recovery HD. Select Reinstall Lion/Mountain Lion, Mavericks from the Utilities menu, and click on the Continue button.
Note: You will need an active Internet connection. I suggest using Ethernet if possible because it is three times faster than wireless.

System gradually slowing down?

I hope I'm not picking up a topic which has been discussed a gazillion times, but I couldn't find my specific questions after doing some searches. There's a few things I won't to clear about Mac OS.
I have a MBP 2009 with 4GB mem and 500GB HD. It still runs smoothly however it defenitly runs slower than in the beginning. I guess that's a bit normal (more programs, files, mails, junk,...).
I've been a PC user most of my life and switched about a year ago. i'm happy. I always found it necessary to do a reinstall of the OS on a pc every 1-2 years (even though I try to keep my stuff very clean). I'm curious how this effects on Mac OS?
If I would do a reinstall, let's say from a Time Machine Backup (so with all my files, programs, mails, settings etc.), would the system run exactly the same or are there some core OS operations that will run 'smoother' after a re-install (with a TM backup). (I guess for a PC that would be a clean registry and not having 'unknown' processes/programs loading at the back).
Also, is having installed a lot of applications (even when they are not running) slowing down the system. I guess it shouldn't as long as there's enough disk space.
And then finally, do disks slow down after a while. Is having a 10% full HD (much) faster then 60% full (mine is around 60%). also disk defrag is no longer 'necessary' in the latest versions of Mac OS but I just can't imagine that after +1y heavy usage some files are "spread out".. (I'm no expert on file systems so I could expect an answer as: "no, EXT FS doesn't have fragmentation"
Anyways, these are a few doubts I still have around a Mac OS system slowing down:
-reinstall OS (this one particularly since i'm thinking of upgrading to new laptop, and wonder if I should start from scratch and copy manually or use my Time Machine backup to reinstall)
-having many apps (not running)
-disk fragmentations, or just hardware slowing down
cheers!
Philippe

If you have not already done so, run Disk Utility's "Verify Disk" & "Repair Permissions" steps on your HD. All utilities that do permissions repairs use exactly the same built-in function of the OS to do so, so it doesn't matter if you do this through Onyx, Disk Utility, or Disk Warrior.
The verify/repair disk step is a bit different: all utilities use the same method of detecting file system errors but (for example) Disk Warrior rebuilds file system directories from scratch (including perfectly useable ones), which often can repair damage Disk Utility can't, & has a side benefit of simplifying directory structures. Once, back when HD's were much slower & less sophisticated than they are now, this could make a large difference in file system performance. Now, it is debatable that an otherwise OK directory structure would show a noticeable improvement.
IOW, if your HD's file system is healthy or only has minor problems, Disk Warrior won't do much of anything of real value that Disk Utility can't, but it can be a lifesaver if Disk Utility can't repair certain kinds of problems it can detect.
The same is true for file fragmentation -- unless the drive is full of very fragmented files, defragmenting it probably won't show much real world improvement.
The number of inactive applications on your Mac makes almost no difference in performance. What can easily do so is the number of active processes running at any given time. As a former PC users, you may not fully appreciate the difference between quitting an app & closing all its windows. Closing all an app's windows is somewhat like old TSR (terminate & stay resident) DOS programs -- it is still using some system resources, although not as many as when it is active. So, if you aren't already doing so, remember to quit applications you do not plan on reusing for a while.
Just as importantly, don't load down the OS with a lot of unnecessary add-ons, especially ones that modify the user interface in some way. Each of these things uses some system resources; a few can destabilize the OS, causing recoverable code exceptions you may not be aware of without searching through system logs but still creating extra work for the CPU.
If or when you remove add-ons or applications, be sure to check the documentation for the proper way to do that. If you don't, you may leave behind files that impact performance.

My macbook slows down after using external HDD

When I use an external drive via usb, my computer really slows down giving me no choice except reboot.
I watched memory usage with activity monitor. Free memory decreases by time and inactive memory increases with the same amount and others don't change much. If I continue using -esp. reading-, free memory comes below to 100MB and then increases a bit -I think it starts paging =other applications' memories= to system disk-, then continues to decrease. Closing the application -that use the external- do not relese memory from inactive to free but ejecting the external does. After unplugging and trying to use the other applications, I face very sluggish performance so that rebooting becomes a better-fast choice. Both NTFS and FAT partitions produce the same result and I don't have any other partition.
If I try to re-read the same file after the external drive stops spinning (sleeps), it does not start spinning but trying to read another file makes it start spining. This makes me think about some -overdone- caching problem, but don't know what causes it and how to turn it off (Tuxero's caching is already disabled in the preferences, although I think it is only for writing only).
I made some research and found nothing specific; they tell to reinstall the os or format the drive -to HFS+ -. What is causing this?
Note: All of my drives are in Spotlight's exclusion (privacy) list and using another usb slot did not change a thing.
My EtreCheck is:
EtreCheck version: 1.9.11 (43) - report generated June 15, 2014
Hardware Information:
    MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)
    MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5
    1 2.26 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores
    4 GB RAM
Video Information:
    NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB
System Software:
    OS X 10.8.3 (12D78) - Uptime: 0 days 1:4:54
Disk Information:
    Hitachi HTS5450 disk0 : (160.04 GB)
        disk0s1 (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
        Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 94.62 GB (48.81 GB free)
        Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
        BOOTCAMP (disk0s4) /Volumes/BOOTCAMP: 64.57 GB (44.49 GB free)
    HL-DT-ST DVDRW GS23N
USB Information:
    Apple Inc. Built-in iSight
    JMicron Storage 500.11 GB
        BKPFAT (disk1s1) /Volumes/BKPFAT: 443.2 GB (25.08 GB free)
        BKPNTFS (disk1s2) <not mounted>: 56.9 GB
    Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
    Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
    Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver
    Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub
        Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
Configuration files:
    /etc/hosts - Count: 1
Gatekeeper:
    Anywhere
Startup Items:
    TuxeraNTFSUnmountHelper: Path: /Library/StartupItems/TuxeraNTFSUnmountHelper
Launch Daemons:
    [loaded]    com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
    [loaded]    com.barebones.authd.plist Support
    [loaded]    com.barebones.textwrangler.plist Support
    [loaded]    com.google.keystone.daemon.plist Support
    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.Helper-Tool.plist Support
    [not loaded]    de.jinx.SmartSleepDaemon.plist Support
    [loaded]    org.macosforge.xquartz.privileged_startx.plist Support
Launch Agents:
    [loaded]    com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support
    [loaded]    com.oracle.java.Java-Updater.plist Support
    [loaded]    org.macosforge.xquartz.startx.plist Support
User Login Items:
    GrowlHelperApp
    Google Drive
    witchdaemon
    BetterTouchTool
Internet Plug-ins:
    JavaAppletPlugin: Version: Java 8 Update 05 Check version
    FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 12.0.0.38 - SDK 10.6 Support
    QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.1
    Flash Player: Version: 12.0.0.38 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update
    o1dbrowserplugin: Version: 5.4.2.18903 Support
    googletalkbrowserplugin: Version: 5.4.2.18903 Support
    Silverlight: Version: 5.1.30317.0 - SDK 10.6 Support
    Unity Web Player: Version: UnityPlayer version 4.1.5f1 Support
    iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0
Safari Extensions:
    Bing Highlights: Version: 1.0.20
    ClickToFlash: Version: 2.5.1
Audio Plug-ins:
    AirPlay: Version: 1.7 - SDK 10.8
    iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.1 - SDK 10.8
iTunes Plug-ins:
    Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.8
3rd Party Preference Panes:
    Flash Player Support
    FUSE for OS X (OSXFUSE) Support
    GamePadCompanionPrefPanel Support
    Growl Support
    Java Support
    MenuMeters Support
    SmartSleep Support
    Tuxera NTFS Support
    Witch Support
Time Machine:
    Time Machine not configured!
Top Processes by CPU:
        25% firefox
         4% activitymonitord
         4% WindowServer
         1% hidd
         1% BetterTouchTool
Top Processes by Memory:
    254 MB firefox
    111 MB Google Chrome
    66 MB   Sublime Text
    61 MB   mds
    59 MB   Google Chrome Helper
Virtual Memory Information:
    1.72 GB Free RAM
    1.21 GB Active RAM
    416 MB Inactive RAM
    425 MB Wired RAM
    378 MB Page-ins
    0 B Page-outs

Thread continues as an OSX discussion here, please do not reply this.

Keeping Spotlight from indexing external disks

Is there a way to exclude ALL external disks from being indexed by Spotlight? I don't need the indexing and it just slows everything down. I know about the list of exclusions, but a disk seems to have to be attached before one can exclude it. Can't one just keep it from indexing anything one might attach?

Vaughan Schlepp wrote:
Can't one just keep it from indexing anything one might attach?
I don't think there is a simple (if any) way to do this, but note that the OS does somehow keep track of excluded disks once they are excluded, even when they don't show up in the list because the drives are not currently mounted.
Perhaps there is some way to edit that list before mounting new drives, but I don't know where the list is or how to edit it.

Hi Everyone. I have an old Mac Book. I have saved a ton of emails in my inbox 'On My Mac'. There are so many it is slowing down my computer. Where do I find the folder with all the emails so I can cut and paste them to an external hard drive?Pls.help.

Hi Everyone. I have an old Mac Book with software updated to 10.6.8. I have saved a ton of emails in my inbox 'On My Mac'. There are so many it is slowing down my computer. Where do I find the folder with all the emails so I can cut and paste them to an external hard drive? Pls.help. Tks.

Depending on which email client software you use
the files should be in 'your home folder' library, esp.
if you use Mail application.... ~/Library/Mail
Since you don't specify what mail application,
that would most be associated with the file.
I notice there are some items to the right of your post
where it says "more like this' so that may be worth a
look to see if similar issues were answered. Also, the
Help viewer in your system is a searchable database.
Seems that google also brings up fair information, too.
Do you have a complete bootable clone of your entire
Mac system on an externally enclosed hard disk drive?
Good luck & happy computing!

My external hard drive goes in to constant access mode and really slows down my computer

I'm using an external hard drive for time machine. After working for an hour or so the drive goes into a constant access mode and realy slows down my IMac. I look at activity monitor and everything looks good, no high CPU usage or memory issues. The only fix is to use the power button to shut down my IMac. After restart it works fine for a while.
If I turn off time machine the problem seems to not happen. I tried disk utility on the external hard drive and it says the dirve is fine. I change out external drives and the problem still occures. Any thoughts?

I didn't realize my profile stated otherwise.
Please check near the bottom of your original post above to see OS X (10.7.2). You might want to update that to avoid confusion and save some time in the future.
OK, please take a deep breath.
Apple does not officially support Time Machine backups to a drive at the USB port of the AirPort Extreme....likely because it is not reliable. You might want to review this Apple Support document to confirm:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2038
So, we are not going to be able to provide you with much assistance on that issue.
Some users seem to be able to make this work....some have some problems....and some (like me) who have tried this have nothing but problems.
Sorry, I can't help on this one, but maybe another user who has had better luck will post to provide his secrets.
The iTunes and iPhoto libraries and files are my only copies now. I moved everything from my Macbook to the external then deleted the originals.
Not sure if you have thought about this.
If you deleted the "originals", then your only copy of your data is on one hard drive. You have no backups if the drive has a problem.
A minimum backup plan would be to have a copy of important data on two different drives. When....not if...one drive fails, you have the data on the "other" drive.
You have no "other" drive according to the information that you have provided.
Further.....Time Machine backs up the changes on your Mac. At some point....you cannot know when.....Time Machine will pick up the change on your Mac and delete the iTunes and iPhoto data from your Time Machine backups.
The files might stay there a few months, or even longer. But, I have seen instances where the files were deleted within a week or two.
So my advice would be to only delete data from your Mac that you can afford to lose.

How to remove spotlight search - it actually slowing down my new iMac?

How to remove spotlight search - it actually slowing down my new iMac while indexing data.

iMac wrote:
How to remove spotlight search - it actually slowing down my new iMac while indexing data.
You shouldn't disable Spotlight completely; Apple's App Store relies on it to keep track of updates to software you've downloaded and permit you to update them when they're available. Instead, in Spotlight preferences, uncheck everything in "Search Results." Spotlight will still run for OS and App Store purposes but won't be useful for your search needs any longer. Instead, check out EasyFind in the App Store. It's fast, flexible, and will search external drives Spotlight hasn't indexed.

If I put the iMovie library on an external drive over a USB 2.0 connection, will it slow down work within a project?

I'm running out of internal disk space on my iMac. I want to move the iMovie (10.0.8) library over to an external disk that has only a USB 3.0 connection. But my iMac has only USB 2.0 ports. When iMovie operates, does it load a project into memory, and do all the work there, or does it bang on the library often while I'm working on the project, so that it would slow down project work? I have a hunch that it does frequent saves during work automatically to disk, which would slow things down a lot.

External disk speed is quite important especially if you have limited RAM since less can be transferred to memory and more has to be read and written back to disk. Your disk will run at USB 2 speed which is not fast but should work. (A Firewire 800 disk would have been better assuming your Mac has this). If you haven't already, update your RAM to the maximum.
Geoff.

I have seen so much response about the Mountain Lion update slowing down computers. I am updating from Mac OS x 10.6.8. What can I do to ensure the upgrade will go fine? Do I unplug my external hard drive before installing, or keep it plugged in?

I have seen so much response about the Mountain Lion update slowing down computers. I am updating from Mac OS x 10.6.8. What can I do to ensure the upgrade will go fine? Do I unplug my external hard drive before installing, or keep it plugged in?
Also, I have the 08 version of iWork. Will this cause problems for the update? Can I update this AFTER I update the processor?

Welcome to Apple Support Communities
There's no reason to think that Mountain Lion will slow down your Mac. Just make a backup of your data before upgrading with Time Machine > http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1427
Also, check that your apps are compatible > http://www.roaringapps.com Upgrade them to a compatible version or delete them before upgrading.
The external drive won't make the OS X Mountain Lion installer fail, but it's better to unplug it during the upgrade.
iWork '08 is compatible with Mountain Lion. iWork '09 includes OS X Mountain Lion features and can be purchased at the Mac App Store.
To upgrade to OS X Mountain Lion, I recommend at least 4 GB of RAM. You can check how much memory you have in Apple menu > About this Mac

External disk slowing down Spotlight

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