Finder/Disk Access Extremely Slow

I have a G4 867 (MDD) running OS 10.4.6. After putting my computer to sleep last night, I woke up this morning to find hanging at the login-from-sleep screen. I force-restarted, and since that point the computer, and especially some components of the Finder, has been running EXTREMELY slow.
Symptoms:
-Hard drives are slow to appear (I have two on the primary channel and two on the secondary). They will eventually show up, but it can take over a minute for drives other than the startup drive. When I scan them with Disk Utility, they appear fine.
-Using menus and accessing files in the Finder can take upwards of a minute or so. Likewise, switching between programs can induce waits of about 30 seconds.
-Curiously, once inside a program (say, Safari or iTunes), no problems exist local to the program, and it can run nearly unaffected... but if I need to change applications or access a file outside the program, the problems surface.
Things I've tried:
-Restarting.
-Trashing my Finder prefs.
-Zapping the PRAM.
-Resetting the PMU.
-Running Disk Utility.
-Running Yasu.
-Reinstalling the 10.4.6 Update.
-Trying to reinstall Tiger (which failed; initially, the DVD couldn't see the drives- then, after I checked them with Disk Utility, it could see them but failed to install after checking the DVD and asked me to restart)
Can anyone help?
G4 Dual 867 (Mirrored Drive Doors) Mac OS X (10.4.6) 2 GB RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro AGP

I got my AE and Seagate FreeAgent Pro hard drive
yesturday and I have the exact same problem.
If I hook up the drive to the computer directly it is
very very fast.
If I hook it up to the AE it takes about 2 hours to
move a couple fils totaling 2 gigs over ETHERNET!
If I transfer the same files over the same network
between 2 computers the speed is much much faster.
Is this normal or some nasty firmware bug. It almost
feels like the AE is using USB 1.0 for some reason.
You guys are funny. How about checking out the specs of USB 2.0 and 802.11g/n?
Go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11g#802.11g
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_2.0
Firewire vs. USB tests are here:
http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/39129/USB20_Versus_FireWirepg3.html
802.11g:
Release Date Op. Frequency Data Rate (Typ) Data Rate (Max) Range (Indoor)
June 2003 2.4 GHz 19 Mbit/s 54 Mbit/s ~35 meters
802.11n:
Release Date Op. Frequency Data Rate (Typ) Data Rate (Max) Range (Indoor)
Mid 2008 5 GHz and/or 2.4 GHz 74 Mbit/s 248 Mbit/s (2 stream) ~70 meters
Bottom line: 802.11n typical is 74Mbps, 802.11g typical is 19Mbps. USB 2.0 typical is 50Mbps.
On the average, you should expect your speed to drop by over 50% when connecting the USB drive to AESB using an 802.11g device. If your device is 802.11n, then you should have pretty much similar performance.
Now, if you increase the distance from your base station, or you put walls in between, the performance of 802.11g will go down "dramatically", all the way to 2-3Mbps, easy. Not so for 802.11n, which behaves much better at longer distances.

Similar Messages

Disk access extremely slow after 10.5.2 Update

I did the update to 10.5.2 today.
1. I tried to update via Software Update. The update started but then stopped with an Error message (Contact Support) and the system freezed. There was just the spinning wheel on blue background for more than one hour. No more harddisk activity. I finally rebooted (hard way). After a reboot I had a somehow upgraded system. But many things did not work anymore (most applications crashed, mail could not access keychain items anymore, etcpp)
2. Then I downloaded the complete Update package to do a manual update (happily firefox still worked). After a manual install it worked. It installed fine and rebooted. Now everything works as it should with the only problem that everything is extremly slow. Starting an application lasts about double the time as normal, loading files takes 3 to 4 times more time than with 10.5.1
To fix these issues I tried several things:
- Fixed permissions
- Cleared all cache files and forced system to rebuild them
- Severall reboots
- Waited until backup completed and Spotlight index was rebuilt
Bootup time is now fine (more or less). Just a little slower than 10.5.1. Application start is still slow but better. But the file access is still extremly slow. This can be observed very well in Parallels which still works fine, but needs 3 to 4 times longer to start (so do all applications within parallels). I checked CPU (Activity Monitor) but could not see anything special.
Any ideas what could be the reason for this behaviour and (more important) how to possibly fix this? I'm thinking about going back to 10.5.1 with time-machine and then try it again with the package install.
Any help/ideas would be appreciated.

Is it slow wireless LAN behavior affecting Time Machine? Check out the third page of this thread, specificallly the post by John Albergo about "delay_ack."
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1394485&start=30&tstart=0
It helped me a lot.

USB Disk access "Extremely" Slow

I am unable to use my network disk essentially because the disk access write/read times are SO SLOW...I am better off running backups by connecting my disk directly to the compter. Does anyone else have this problem?
It took 5 Minutes to read my Music directory; connected directly via the same cable it takes seconds.
What gives?
Any help would be appreciated.

I got my AE and Seagate FreeAgent Pro hard drive
yesturday and I have the exact same problem.
If I hook up the drive to the computer directly it is
very very fast.
If I hook it up to the AE it takes about 2 hours to
move a couple fils totaling 2 gigs over ETHERNET!
If I transfer the same files over the same network
between 2 computers the speed is much much faster.
Is this normal or some nasty firmware bug. It almost
feels like the AE is using USB 1.0 for some reason.
You guys are funny. How about checking out the specs of USB 2.0 and 802.11g/n?
Go here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11g#802.11g
and here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB_2.0
Firewire vs. USB tests are here:
http://www.g4tv.com/techtvvault/features/39129/USB20_Versus_FireWirepg3.html
802.11g:
Release Date Op. Frequency Data Rate (Typ) Data Rate (Max) Range (Indoor)
June 2003 2.4 GHz 19 Mbit/s 54 Mbit/s ~35 meters
802.11n:
Release Date Op. Frequency Data Rate (Typ) Data Rate (Max) Range (Indoor)
Mid 2008 5 GHz and/or 2.4 GHz 74 Mbit/s 248 Mbit/s (2 stream) ~70 meters
Bottom line: 802.11n typical is 74Mbps, 802.11g typical is 19Mbps. USB 2.0 typical is 50Mbps.
On the average, you should expect your speed to drop by over 50% when connecting the USB drive to AESB using an 802.11g device. If your device is 802.11n, then you should have pretty much similar performance.
Now, if you increase the distance from your base station, or you put walls in between, the performance of 802.11g will go down "dramatically", all the way to 2-3Mbps, easy. Not so for 802.11n, which behaves much better at longer distances.

Disk IMage extremely slow

I"m trying to make a disk image from a large video project.
I don't understand why this is so extremely slow. Idvd does this in 1 or 2 hours.
Dvd studio Pro has been going for more than 6 hours. It looks like it will take 9 or 10 hours at this rate. In the preferences it's set for 1 pass vbr and best.
Something must be wrong. Why should this take 10 hours?
also, I left region 7 unchecked in the region window. Is that a problem?

I started answering you in the other thread (double posted the issue it looks like)
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2225971&tstart=0
Take a look at the other thread. 9 or 10 hours to encode may be correct, especially on the machines you describe in the other thread. How long is the movie (running time?) If you are low on disk space, working off of only one drive and other things can slow things down...
The Region 7 unchecked should not affect speeds, but you probably want to check it as a matter of course....

Eveything involving disk access is slow

Why is everything to do with HD access seems to be slow, very painfully slow!!
Due to a failed RAID I got a new 500gb Seagate SATA HD drive to install internally.
I have been tiding files up and using 'Archive' a lot and it takes an age to do anything. It seems the size of the Archive is directly proportional to the performance. I have a 63gb folder to Archive and at 12.36gb it is now managing a stellar .01 gb a second, with 4 hours to completion!!
Activity Monitor is only reporting:
Data read/sec 10.58mb
Data written/sec 10.00mb
The best snapshot!@
And is very bad!!
I moved 54gb of Aperture images from my old external FW400 RAID onto a new 500gb internal SATA drive with no real visible performance gain.
Anyone got any hints at what maybe the problem? I don't think its a hardware issue but an OS X issue.
I know Seagate are not the fastest HD on the market but they were the cheapest. I also know cheaper is not the best but a SATA disk on a MacPro should produce much better performance than I am getting.

Hi Pedro,
I'm having the exact same issue as you, whilst transfering files using finder to the Time Capsule or a USB drive attached to the Time Capsule it used to be quick really quick specially via Ethernet connection, after upgrading to Lion the speed is appaling and it can come to a stand still. I have a 100gb iTunes collection on the disk that used to work fine with Snow Leopard now I can't access it. Same goes for the multiple iPhoto collections I have there.
I have tried to format USB drive and Time Capsule HD as well it did not help. Sometimes the transfers can take ages other times they just stop and Finder can be seen on activity monitor as being hanged.
To rule out a problem with the Time Capsule I connected the Mac at work to a windows network I logged in and presto! All network transfers were bad in terms of speed, really bad!
Decided to re-install Lion from scratch but alas the problem is still there.... appareltly Lion 10.7.1 is coming quicker than previously thought....

Choose Disk interface extremely slow

Odd problem. On my MacPro I've been backing up to an external FW800 drive for quite awhile. Earlier last week I moved that drive to my Leopard Server, repartitioned it and reformatted it. I've made it available as a time machine backup destination and my Mini and MBP are happily backing up to it now.
Problem is on the MacPro when I select "Change Disk" in the time machine preferences it takes forever to bring up a list (at least a minute). On that list I see my local drives and the server drive. Each refresh of the list takes a minute or more (i.e. I click no disk or the server drive). Eventually I get the server drive selected and when it goes to back up it says the drive can't be mounted.
Any idea what's going on?

Hello oswaldt,
Do you still experience the "slow interface" problem with Time Machine?
I had the same with Mac OS 10.5.4 Server on a PowerMac G5. The problem went away after a fresh install. But now having switched on a MacPro and done a bit of configuration on the server, I get the "slow interface" problem back.
Here's what I've done so far, so you may recognize something in your setup:
- Server boot disc is a mirror of 2 x 250 GB (internal).
- The 2 other internal drives are 500 GB each, and were concatenated.
- A Sonnet Fusion D500P is connected through a Sonnet Tempo SATA E4P controller card. Tower is loaded this way:
-- bay 1: 500 GB
-- bay 2: 500 GB
-- bay 3: 1000 GB
-- bay 4: 500 GB
-- bay 5: 500 GB
bay 1 and 4 are stripped (STRIP1);
bay 2 and 5 are also stripped (STRIP2);
STRIP1 and STRIP2 are mirrored;
bay 3 is the TimeMachine backup drive;
All disc mirroring, contenation and stripping were done using DiskUtility.
[edit]: I've forgot, I also have a 300 GB Maxtor OneTouch drive connected through FireWire...
The MacPro has 8GB of RAM.
On the server config side, I have:
- Fixed IP address;
- working DNS setup with a custom-made top-level zone for the LAN;
- freshly started OpenDirectory service;
- AFP service running (automatic configuration, I've touched nothing);
- no other service running for now;
- hostname returned by command "hostname" in Terminal is not <nameOfComputer>.local. It's a fully qualified name like server.gti.lan.
Note that, on my side, although the interface is very slow, I can get TimeMachine to work. So I suspect there are two problems in your case: slow GUI response time, and then drive-related issue.
Let me know what you can find. I've seen very few posts regarding that problem, and found none answered so far...
Message was edited by: Frederic Denis

External Disk Access Suddenly Slow

It now takes forever to load files (Open a finder window) when I open an external drive partition that contains my imovie files and main backup partition on the same external drive.
I never had a problem before.
The permissions for the "Backup" partition in the external drive are:
- system - Read and write
- admin - Read and write
- everyone - Read
The permissions for the "Movie" partition in the external drive are:
- <my user name> "(me)" - Read and write
- admin - Read and write
- everyone - Read
Both drives load - very - slowly (5 minutes).
I am the admin, and the only user.
OS 10.8.5
Can anyone offer ideas?
Disk utility found no permissions issues.
Thanks.
Mac

It happens a very spooky thing, by trying for the N time to check the disk (with the disk program), it suddenly reapear at the desktop... i was very upset, dont know what have I done lastly, but allas, its now healled. I hope it will keep this way otherwise i'll be back here
Sorry to bother you guys, thank you so much for all the links and the patiente!
(Thanx God I dont have to deal with that DOSlike terminal). At least I learn a good lesson, rookies should never mess with volumes's privileges...
my best kind regards!

Outlook 2010/13 Laptop Calendar access extremely slow after opening shared calendar

I have a problem with several laptops running Win 7 Ultimate on a network running SBS 2008 (Exch 2007) when they are on the internal network. Outlook response is fine until they tick any shared calendar (either shared by the user or with full access
to the mailbox granted at the server level)- the response of the calendar screen for the
local users calendar or the shared calendar
when using the advance or retreat arrows on the weeks drops down to roughly 20 seconds to advance to the next week, if the shared calendar is then unticked the speed stays slow for accessing the local calendar. if the user exits outlook and restarts
it the speed for accessing their own calendar returns to normal until they open another shared calendar.
this is a problem that has started within the last couple of months. SP are up to date on the windows and office.
I have tried ticking the download shared folders on and off, and also switching to using HTTP instead of TCPIP through the outlook anywhere. they run in cached mode as they are laptops- uncached is not an option
network access is fine
The problem affects some users on the network but not others. the problem shows on office 2010 and 2013. they don't appear to have the problem when they are out of the office.
Any thoughts anyone?

If you run your profile in Exchange cache mode and enable "Download share folders", please try to run SCANPST file to fix the OST/PST file and check the result.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287497/en-us
By the way, does it for all shared calendr when you go to access them?
Tony Chen
TechNet Community Support

My 10.9.3 Finder Window is extremely slow and unresponsive.

EtreCheck version: 1.9.12 (48)
Report generated June 17, 2014 at 5:21:56 PM EDT
Hardware Information:
          MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013) (Verified)
          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro11,3
          1 2.3 GHz Intel Core i7 CPU: 4 cores
          16 GB RAM
Video Information:
          Intel Iris Pro - VRAM: (null)
                    Color LCD 2880 x 1800
          NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M - VRAM: 2048 MB
System Software:
          OS X 10.9.3 (13D65) - Uptime: 0 days 0:0:46
Disk Information:
          APPLE SSD SM0512F disk0 : (500.28 GB)
                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209.7 MB
                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) / [Startup]: 499.42 GB (244.31 GB free)
                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB
USB Information:
          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader
          Apple Inc. BRCM20702 Hub
                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller
          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad
Thunderbolt Information:
          Apple Inc. thunderbolt_bus
Configuration files:
          /etc/sysctl.conf - Exists
Gatekeeper:
          Mac App Store
Kernel Extensions:
          [not loaded] com.apogee.driver.ApogeeUSBSymphonyIOAudio (1.0.0a1 - SDK 10.8) Support
          [not loaded] com.apogeedigital.driver.Symphony64 (1.14.20 - SDK 10.8) Support
          [not loaded] com.apogeedigital.driver.Symphony64ThunderBridge (1.14.20 - SDK 10.8) Support
          [not loaded] com.apogeedigital.driver.SymphonyMobile (1.14.20 - SDK 10.8) Support
          [not loaded] com.avast.AvastFileShield (2.1.0 - SDK 10.9) Support
          [not loaded] com.avast.PacketForwarder (1.4 - SDK 10.9) Support
          [loaded] com.digidesign.iokit.DigiDal (10.0f56 - SDK 10.6) Support
          [loaded] com.nvidia.CUDA (1.1.0) Support
          [not loaded] com.paceap.kext.pacesupport.leopard (5.9.1 - SDK 10.4) Support
          [not loaded] com.paceap.kext.pacesupport.master (5.9.1 - SDK 10.6) Support
          [not loaded] com.paceap.kext.pacesupport.panther (5.9.1 - SDK 10.3) Support
          [loaded] com.paceap.kext.pacesupport.snowleopard (5.9.1 - SDK 10.6) Support
          [not loaded] com.paceap.kext.pacesupport.tiger (5.9.1 - SDK 10.4) Support
          [not loaded] com.roxio.TDIXController (2.0) Support
Startup Items:
          CUDA: Path: /System/Library/StartupItems/CUDA
          DigidesignLoader: Path: /Library/StartupItems/DigidesignLoader
Launch Daemons:
          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist Support
          [running] com.edb.launchd.postgresql-8.4.plist Support
          [running] com.paceap.eden.licensed.plist Support
          [running] com.symphonyDaemon.plist Support
          [running] com.SymphonyIOUSBDaemon.plist Support
          [running] com.usbApogeeDaemon.plist Support
          [loaded] net.sourceforge.MonolingualHelper.plist Support
          [loaded] PACESupport.plist Support
Launch Agents:
          [not loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist Support
          [running] com.adobe.AdobeCreativeCloud.plist Support
          [running] com.ApogeePopup.plist Support
          [loaded] com.nvidia.CUDASoftwareUpdate.plist Support
User Launch Agents:
          [loaded] com.adobe.AAM.Updater-1.0.plist Support
          [loaded] com.avast.home.userinit.plist Support
          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist Support
User Login Items:
          RED Watchdog
          iTunesHelper
          Google Drive
          Dropbox
          ClipMenu
Internet Plug-ins:
          AdobeAAMDetect: Version: AdobeAAMDetect 2.0.0.0 - SDK 10.7 Support
          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Support
          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3
          AdobePDFViewerNPAPI: Version: 11.0.0 - SDK 10.6 Support
          AdobePDFViewer: Version: 11.0.0 - SDK 10.6 Support
          Flash Player: Version: 13.0.0.214 - SDK 10.6 Outdated! Update
          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9
Safari Extensions:
          avast! Online Security: Version: 8
Audio Plug-ins:
          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9
          AirPlay: Version: 2.0 - SDK 10.9
          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 203.2 - SDK 10.9
          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9
iTunes Plug-ins:
          Quartz Composer Visualizer: Version: 1.4 - SDK 10.9
User Internet Plug-ins:
          Aspera Web 3.3.3.81344: Version: (null) - SDK 10.6 Support
3rd Party Preference Panes:
          CUDA Preferences Support
          Flash Player Support
Time Machine:
          Skip System Files: NO
          Auto backup: YES
          Volumes being backed up:
                    Macintosh HD: Disk size: 465.12 GB Disk used: 237.58 GB
          Destinations:
                    TK Macbook BU [Local] (Last used)
                    Total size: 465.44 GB
                    Total number of backups: 11
                    Oldest backup: 2014-03-14 01:43:21 +0000
                    Last backup: 2014-06-02 18:51:15 +0000
                    Size of backup disk: Too small
                              Backup size 465.44 GB < (Disk used 237.58 GB X 3)
          Time Machine details may not be accurate.
          All volumes being backed up may not be listed.
Top Processes by CPU:
               2%          WindowServer
               2%          fontd
               0%          Creative Cloud
               0%          Dropbox
               0%          configd
Top Processes by Memory:
          229 MB          Dock
          164 MB          com.apple.IconServicesAgent
          131 MB          ClipMenu
          82 MB          Dropbox
          82 MB          WindowServer
Virtual Memory Information:
          12.19 GB          Free RAM
          2.12 GB          Active RAM
          472 MB          Inactive RAM
          1.22 GB          Wired RAM
          536 MB          Page-ins
          0 B          Page-outs

I have the same machine - and the same problem.

Disk Utility: Extremely slow read phase during permissions repair

Shortly (but not immediately) after I upgraded from 10.3.9 to 10.5.6, repair permissions began taking a ridiculously long time to complete. Looking at the DU log, I see the read phase is the problem: DU spends over 2 hours on this, then performs the repair phase in a reasonable period. I'm using roughly 90 of my drive's 150 GB.
Last night, in Activity Monitor, I saw DU start 4 threads, which used 3-5% CPU initially. Checking later, I noticed CPU had dropped to 0% and stayed there until the repair phase started, at which point CPU went to 3-7%.

You know, don't you, that "Repair Permissions" doesn't actually REPAIR anything?
It does one thing: It goes through the BOM file (and, now with 10.5, the database as well), and compares the permissions on system files and on applications installed that put a receipt in there, and RESETS the permissions to whatever the BOM files and database say. Nothing more, nothing less. NO ISSUES related to the users home folder can be repaired in any way, because there are no receipts for them.
I'm not saying there aren't a set of very specific issues that "Repair Permissions" can't fix. But to say it should be regularly used to troubleshoot and as proactive maintenance is like recommending chiropractic care to fix a hangnail. It probably does more harm than good, as there may be cases where you actually WANT to change permissions, and "Repair Permissions" stomps all over them.

Drive access impossibly slow... Even though target disk!

Drive access on our MacBook Pro is suddenly impossibly slow - taking five, ten minutes to startup, and being unable to complete an install (Java update). I found no errors in disk repair and just 'ignorable' errors in permissions. Programs crashing or haltling - even Finder and Force Quit aren't coming up.
Plugged it into my white MacBook to run Drive Genius to see if the drive could be salvaged, and disk access is slow even this way. Crazy slow, like taking several minutes just to get the drive information.
Size: 499.25 GB (464.96 GiB, 499,248,103,424 bytes)
Formatted As: Mac OS Extended (Journaled)
Volume Block Count: 121,886,744
Volume Block Size: 4,096 bytes
Volume Size: 499.25 GB (464.96 GiB, 499,248,103,424 bytes)
Journal: Enabled
Used: 259.67 GB (241.83 GiB, 259,666,432,000 bytes), 52.01%
So it seems normal, just really, exceedingly, impossibly slow.
What are the possible solutions? I'm not entirely certain it's just the drive; one of the USB ports on the computer is randomly non functioning, no software indications.
-Crissa

Using the online hardware test tool (Boot using Option+D) I was able to discern that the operaitng system had decided the drive was bad without actually telling me it was bad. Eventually the drive completely failed.
While it was slow, I had backed everything up. I found a guide to replacing the HD, although I did not actually need the fancy screwdriver to put the drive back in. It was very simple!
The USB issue still comes and goes, though.
-Crissa

Extremely slow disk access iMac5.1

Hello, my daughter is having problems with her computer. She has a Mac5.1 ( intel ) running 10.4.11.
In the process of trying to determine the problem, I installed Xbench on her computer. The numbers for the disk access category are dismal, all others (although low) appear normal.
This disk values are:
Sequential                         0.03
    Uncached Write            0.01        0.01 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Write            0.17        0.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Uncached Read            60.40        17.68 MB/sec[4K blocks]
    Uncached Read            86.73        43.59 MN/sec[256K blocks]
Random                            1.35
    Uncached Write           15.89        0.01 MB/sec [4K blocks]
    Uncached Write            0.35        0.10 MB/sec [256K blocks]
    Uncached Read            63.58        17.68 MB/sec[4K blocks]
    Uncached Read            99.67        43.59 MN/sec[256K blocks
Aparently sequential access is much worse that random access however Apple utilities as well as Onyx claims that the disk is fine. However the computer is nearly unusable.   What else can I try? I ran an fsck on the disk, I also caused the write permissions to be corrected. I am running out of ideas.
BTW her disk is a WDC WD160JS-40TGB0. Out of 148 Gig, 110 are used and about 40 are free.
Any Ideas? Any help is greatly appreciated.

How much RAM does the iMac have and how many Applications are running concurrently or set to open at login?
40GB should be ample free space for V-RAM, but it could definitely get bogged down if there is to little RAM for the users needs.
Sometimes one will inadvertently set a bunch of stuff to automatically open at login. Go to: Apple > System Preferences > Accounts > Login Items and remove any unnecessary Application automatically set to open at login-in and then restart the computer.
Then again it could be that the HD is just suffering from age, if it has been thrashed because of continual page outs due to the lack of system memory. Because my Earlier 2006 Mac4,1 with 2GB of RAM that I upgraded (for space reasons) to a WD 320GB Hard Drive in 2009 is getting:
Disk Test
55.08
Sequential
47.67
Uncached Write
177.90
109.23 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write
175.61
99.36 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read
14.73
4.31 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read
211.81
106.45 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Random
65.23
Uncached Write
25.42
2.69 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Write
182.78
58.51 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Uncached Read
93.31
0.66 MB/sec [4K blocks]
Uncached Read
172.38
31.99 MB/sec [256K blocks]
Dennis

Finder sluggish freezes up most applications running extremely slow

all applications are running extremly slow even crashing. finder window opens cursor just spins all the time..all typing is paused i type it shows up seconds later

Ho much free space on your hard drive? At least 10 GB needed for optimal functioning of OSX.
Verify your hard drive and permissions and repair if necessary.
First, if at all possible make a backup of the drive in its present configuration. If something goes wrong during repair attempts and makes things worse you will have a backup. You will have to decide how to work this in the light of any present backups you may have, for example, a backup that may be a few days out of date. In that case you may want to keep that one and make a second backup of this as they are now, though I realize people often don't have a lot of empty drives sitting around.
Next, boot from the installer disk, select language if applicable, choose utilities, run Disk Utility and verify (and repair if necessary) the drive. Then repair the permissions on your computer. You can also repair permissions from DU on your main drive while booted, but to properly verify and repair your drive you have to run it from a drive other than the boot drive. A limited repair is also performed as part of a Safe Mode boot.
[Resolve startup issues and perform disk maintenance with Disk Utility and fsck|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=106214]
[Using Disk Utility in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=302672]
[Disk Utility's Repair Disk Permissions|http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=25751]
[Post by japamac about using fsk|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1649143&tstart=0]
From BDaqua (couldn't have said it better):
"Try Disk Utility
1. Insert the Mac OS X Install disc that came with your computer (Edit: Do not use this disc if it is not the same general version as what you have currently on your computer, e.g. use a Tiger disc for a Tiger drive, not a Panther disc), then restart the computer while holding the C key.
2. When your computer finishes starting up from the disc, choose Disk Utility from the Installer menu. (In Mac OS X 10.4 or later, you must select your language first.)
Important: Do not click Continue in the first screen of the Installer. If you do, you must restart from the disc again to access Disk Utility.
3. Click the First Aid tab.
4. Click the disclosure triangle to the left of the hard drive icon to display the names of your hard disk volumes and partitions.
5. Select your Mac OS X volume.
6. Click Repair. Disk Utility checks and repairs the disk.
Then Safe Boot, (holding Shift key down at bootup), run Disk Utility in Applications>Utilities, then highlight your drive, click on Repair Permissions, reboot when it completes."
Try Applejack for a general check.
[Applejack|http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=79562]
Very informative [Macworld Applejack article|http://www.macworld.com/article/135377/applejack15.html]
Some general maintenance tips, but don't overdo it with these utilities because OSX does a lot of this automatically and if you are experience problems like this it isn't due to bad "maintenance" but likely due to something like an over-full hard drive.
[Mac Tune-up: 34 Software Speedups|http://www.macworld.com/article/49489/2006/02/softwarespeed.html]
[52 Ways to Speed Up OS X|http://www.imafish.co.uk/articles/post/articles/130/52-ways-to-speed-up-os-x>
[Tuning Mac OS X Performance|http://www.thexlab.com/faqs/performance.html]
[11 Ways to Optimize Your Mac's Performance|http://lowendmac.com/eubanks/07/0312.html]
[The Top 7 Free Utilities To Maintain A Mac.|http://mac360.com/index.php/mac360/comments/thetop_7_free_utilities_to_maintain_amac>
[Mac OS X: System maintenance|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=607640]
[Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance|http://www.macattorney.com/ts.html#Anchor-31774]
[Kappy's Personal Suggestions for OS X Maintenance|http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8230024#8230024 ]
[a brody's Topic: Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1772235]
[Are the desktops cluttered with files and folders?|http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7668937#7668937]

Time Capsule disk access SLOW! 2TB - Dual band

I have a Time Capsule (2TB, Dual Band, Firmare at 7.4.2)
Its been working like a dream, backing up 3 Macs for the last 8 months.
I also use it for connecting two or three other disks via USB and then making those accessible over the LAN, and there is also about 100GB of data on the Time capsule disk itself that i use as a dump for files so i can get to them from anywhere on my LAN.
Lately I started to notice EXTREMELY slow disk access, even when i am connected via ethernet (1000 base) - and equally when I am connected via wifi (n)
for example, copying over a 2Mb photo can take minutes when it should take seconds.
i've been trying to figure out whats going on here for a while and so i checked out the sizes of the backup files.. the sparseimages that time machine creates.
one of them was nearly 1TB, while another was around 500GB and the other was around 120GB
that plus my data meant there was only about 300GB free on the 2TB disk.
I have a feeling the slowness could be down to extreme fragmentation of the drive... ??
so i decided to dump the backup files and copy off my other data and do a erase of the disk and start again.. but get this.. i can't even delete the 1TB file ! I have been trying for about 3 days now and it just will not delete.. i get the Deleting msg box and it just sits there, literally ALL night...
i know it isn't just hanging on the Mac (10.6.4) because deleting the other two images also took a long time (but not this long!)
i can't just wipe the disk now because i can't get my other data off either.. I have tried copying it over the network and onto a USB disk connected directly to the Time Capsule, but 3 days later and i'm still copying files..
to put some context into this, I copied over 1.8Gb today and it took about 4 hours...
has anyone had this problem before?? what on earth is going on?? is it down to fragmentation, or something else?? the TC has been working fine up until a few weeks ago when i started to notice slow speed.
any ideas ?
thanks
Adam

if anyone ever has this issue ....
it must have been EXTREME fragmentation. I bought another 2TB external disk, connected it to the TC, did a complete archive, which took around 24 hours... then i wiped the TC and put stuff back... it now works fine again...

Finder extremely slow, trash takes ages and some USB-devices don't work

My MacPro is lightning fast when booted without extensions (shift down), but when I boot normally some apps work fine, but the Eye TV usb receiver won't work.
Emptying trash might take hours for 1 or 2 files.
Copying files from one HDD to another takes ages
Finder is extremely slow (takes forever to show contents of a mounted DMG).
installing software will often not work.
awkwardly enough FCP seems to work fine while simple use of the finder is nerve wrecking.
iTunes won't launch.
I've tried adding extra memory (got screwed into buying 4GB at extorniate price at the Apple retaier), cleaning up cache, flushing pram, removing Norton AV, removing all old Adobe apps, all tools I never use...
I tried booting without USB and firewire devices.
now the pc HDD connected show full size empty disks where one cannot write...
I already learned to live with the fact that Snow leopard makes my HP Designjet and all my labelprinters from Brother useless, but I need to work. Does someone have an idea on how to get Snow Laggard to become a Snow Leopard?

See:
Mac Maintenance Quick Assist,
Mac OS X speed FAQ,
Speeding up Macs,
Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up,
Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines,
Maintaining OS X,
Five Mac maintenance myths, and
Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X for information.

Finder/Disk Access Extremely Slow

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