File System Slow?

[onujpt]

Hello,

I'm wondering if anyone could lend a hand on an issue I am newly experiencing on my iMac. Lately, anything to do with the file system seems to be running incredibly slow. For example, moving files, deleting files, installing files, etc.

Did a large transfer between my computer and an external hard drive the other day and it took nearly 12 hours for 1TB (lots of large video files). I tried to update my Adobe Photoshop/Premiere Pro/Illustrator - each one took nearly 45 minutes to install once downloaded. Updated pages/keynote/numbers .... downloads super fast. Installs took forever.

I have boot camp with windows installed and I'm experiencing the same issue there, too. For example, I ran the Windows Update Assistant. It downloaded everything I needed very quickly, but the install process is taking forever.

What could be causing this? Is there a way to fix without having to format the drive.... or would that even fix it? I'm running the latest MacOS. iMac 27" Intel Core i7 3.4Ghz with 32 GB of Ram and 1TB hard drive (which is only about 20% full).

Thank you in advance!

 

[chabig]

My guess is that your hard drive is failing. You should make sure it’s backed up.

 

[onujpt]

Eh. I mean. Everything I need is on an external or in the cloud. But wouldn't there be other signs of it failing? Like. The system crashing? Or other things being slow.... like opening files? Or simply typing or moving the mouse?
[doublepost=1526149490][/doublepost]Or... also... is there any chance the APFS has anything to do with it? None of this really seemed to be an issue prior to then?

 

[chabig]

It sounds like failing hardware to me. The file system should not make a difference. It could also be that your CPU is taxed doing something but you didn’t mention anything about that.

 

[MC6800]

Open Console and look for error messages.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Or... also... is there any chance the APFS has anything to do with it? None of this really seemed to be an issue prior to then?

Yes. There are reports of slowness with APFS and hard drives. It is optimized for solid state, not spinning drives.

You can read the whys....but it is fairly well documented if you search for it.

Assuming your HD is healthy, you have 2 primary options:

• Clone your OS to an external, reformat back to HFS+, and clone the backup back to the internal drive.
• Take this opportunity to upgrade to an SSD.

If you are not ready to upgrade, there are some tools that can clone your boot drive from APFS to HFS+. The best one out there is probably CCC.