Assessing Performance

[rokey]

Mac mini Mid 2011
i5 2.3GHz (98% Idle)
500GB HDD (75% empty)
8GB RAM 1333 MHz DDR3 (70% available)
1 hour uptime
Disk permissions repaired 2 hours ago
Only Chrome and Mail running in the foreground

Some tasks take a while to complete, and dont max (or even HEAVILY increase) CPU usage. For example, I can launch iPhoto (which takes 21 seconds to become fully operational) and 3 out of 4 CPU threads will remain 90% (or more) idle, while one thread will be nearly maxed.

Why do some things seem to lag like this?
All help is greatly appreciated!!!

 

[DustinT]

Launching applications is almost always delayed by your hard drive. If you wanted to see that go away you'd need an SSD. I have one and I just timed my launch for iPhoto. It was 2 seconds to become fully operational.

 

[rokey]

Launching applications is almost always delayed by your hard drive. If you wanted to see that go away you'd need an SSD. I have one and I just timed my launch for iPhoto. It was 2 seconds to become fully operational.

That is one thing that I seriously considered already, I suppose my worry about that idea however is that, when launching iPhoto (with over 55GB of files) my HDD never reaches a Read or Write speed higher than 5 MB/s.

Now, I know that SSDs can have very fast max read/write speeds, but my HDD shouldn't be limited to that 5MB/s.

Thanks for your reply!

 

[shortcut3d]

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Launching applications is almost always delayed by your hard drive. If you wanted to see that go away you'd need an SSD. I have one and I just timed my launch for iPhoto. It was 2 seconds to become fully operational.

That is one thing that I seriously considered already, I suppose my worry about that idea however is that, when launching iPhoto (with over 55GB of files) my HDD never reaches a Read or Write speed higher than 5 MB/s.

Now, I know that SSDs can have very fast max read/write speeds, but my HDD shouldn't be limited to that 5MB/s.

Thanks for your reply!

The HDD is limited by random or small read/writes. SSDs really excel in this area. For example OWC claims their Pro 6G is up to 98 times faster. The reason is 4k read/write when a standard HDD only manages less than to slightly more than 1MB/s.

 

[rokey]

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The HDD is limited by random or small read/writes. SSDs really excel in this area. For example OWC claims their Pro 6G is up to 98 times faster. The reason is 4k read/write when a standard HDD only manages less than to slightly more than 1MB/s.

Well now that makes a ton of sense in the long run. For the last month I've been eyeballing a 512GB SSD on the egg but it's still up around $800, a little high for my wallet. Do I need a drive just big enough for my OS + Apps, or OS + Apps + their files (like the iPhoto Library)

 

[rokey]

also, i've been starting to get an issue with spotlight. it runs very sluggish sometimes, and sometimes once i start typing a search the spotlight bar gets um... lost?