Sluggishness after deleting 100GB?

[Peter Franks]

I thought deleting 100GB from a 500GB SSD would make a fair difference to the running of things. Can anyone tell me what goes on behind the scenes, because not only has it not made any difference whatsoever to the speed of things, but it's now infinitely worse and pages are sluggish, and as for browsers, forget it! I am typing this and it's a sentence behind me

Is the hard drive doing something because I've deleted 100GB a few hours ago, or is something else going on?
I can understand it if it's now formatting something or other because of the deletions, but it's now almost unusable.

Ironically, it was not sluggish before the deletions. But now it's unusable, so far?

Question is, what is it doing and is it doing stuff in the background? I tried turning off, and nothing doing in activity monitor?

Thank you for any enlightenment

 

[usagora]

What kind of files, etc. did the 100GB consist of and how did you go about deleting them?

 

[Alpha Centauri]

Hazard a guess it's Spotlight re indexing. Open Activity Monitor from Utilities Folder in Applications. Choose CPU and look for the process ' mdworker' (metadata server worker). Highlight to follow it. High CPU use due to indexing could take a while but at least you'll know why the slow down.

 

[Peter Franks]

What kind of files, etc. did the 100GB consist of and how did you go about deleting them?

Mainly consisted of old MP4 work files that made up the bulk.
Dragged into Trash, and emptied. Is there another better way which deletes properly for big files? I always under the impression nothing really gone gone, so is that another factor?

Hazard a guess it's Spotlight re indexing. Open Activity Monitor from Utilities Folder in Applications. Choose CPU and look for the process ' mdworker' (metadata server worker). Highlight to follow it. High CPU use due to indexing could take a while but at least you'll know why the slow down.

I've switched off for a few hours and just turned back on, It seems to have stopped doing what it was doing, I think mdworker was high up the CPU earlier, windowserver/hidd/kerneltask/sysmond, which are always pretty high on the list, and the as always ever present google chrome helper renderer which is always high. I gather it will blow up again shortly, as I turned it off while it was the slowest it's ever been.

Thanks for the replies good people.


EDIT media indexer and photo analysis just made a very high appearance at 50% but briefly

 

[MarkC426]

This 100gb will also take a while to disappear if you have Time Machine.
MacOS creates snapshots which are kept for a couple of days.

If you check finder, has the space been freed up yet?
If your drive had less than 25% free you would notice some slow downs.

 

[Peter Franks]

This 100gb will also take a while to disappear if you have Time Machine.
MacOS creates snapshots which are kept for a couple of days.

If you check finder, has the space been freed up yet?
If your drive had less than 25% free you would notice some slow downs.

I did have less than 25% but it was actually running faster then.
The space freed showed as soon as I emptied trash. I now have 122GB available space.
Time Machine, only when I connect to do backup, it's a MBP so not often enough.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here but I think if you have "Back up Automatically" checked in TM preferences then your system will create TM snapshots…which take up space.

If that's the case…and you're not using TM with an always-connected drive…then you ought to uncheck that pref and, when you connect your TM drive, perform the "Back Up Now" command from the TM menubar menu.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:

In cases like this, a restart helps.
Looks like it worked for you...

 

[Peter Franks]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong here but I think if you have "Back up Automatically" checked in TM preferences then your system will create TM snapshots…which take up space.

If that's the case…and you're not using TM with an always-connected drive…then you ought to uncheck that pref and, when you connect your TM drive, perform the "Back Up Now" command from the TM menubar menu.

Auto back ups are off it says...

OP:

In cases like this, a restart helps.
Looks like it worked for you...

Not initially, but hours later yes, it helped.

Thanks

Out of interest, someone asked me how I deleted files.
Other than putting them in the trash, what else is there?

 

[DeltaMac]

"what else is there?"
The files still take up space when in the trash - so, "what else...?" remember to empty the trash when you are done.
I know... But, I still encounter questions from users who think dragging files to the trash somehow releases space on the drive.
And, did not know that emptying the trash was a "thing"

 

[Boyd01]

Do you have Carbon Copy Cloner? If so, open it and select your disk. That will display any hidden "snapshot" files. I work with a lot of huge geodata files (often as large as 100gb) that are only needed for a short time and then deleted. I had a problem with the system not freeing up space afterwards, even after a restart. Carbon Copy allowed me to delete a bunch of large snapshots that were taking up space.

This is all pretty mysterious and I didn't dig too deeply into the details, so not sure if it will help but it might be worth a look. If you don't have a registered copy, the free trial should be able to do this. This is what the display looks like. Note that your disk will have two volumes with APFS, they appear in the sidebar on the left of the CC window. The "Data" volume is where you are likely to find any large snapshots. Right-click the snapshot and choose "delete" if you want to remove it.

 

[Peter Franks]

"what else is there?"
The files still take up space when in the trash - so, "what else...?" remember to empty the trash when you are done.
I know... But, I still encounter questions from users who think dragging files to the trash somehow releases space on the drive.
And, did not know that emptying the trash was a "thing"

As soon as they go in there I deleted them, I thought from the way that was written, 'how did you go about deleting them', from 'usagora', that there was something I was missing.

Do you have Carbon Copy Cloner? If so, open it and select your disk. That will display any hidden "snapshot" files. I work with a lot of huge geodata files (often as large as 100gb) that are only needed for a short time and then deleted. I had a problem with the system not freeing up space afterwards, even after a restart. Carbon Copy allowed me to delete a bunch of large snapshots that were taking up space.

This is all pretty mysterious and I didn't dig too deeply into the details, so not sure if it will help but it might be worth a look. If you don't have a registered copy, the free trial should be able to do this. This is what the display looks like. Note that your disk will have two volumes with APFS, they appear in the sidebar on the left of the CC window. The "Data" volume is where you are likely to find any large snapshots. Right-click the snapshot and choose "delete" if you want to remove it.

View attachment 1998850

Thanks, and this is not visible unless you use CCC?

 

[Boyd01]

I did some Google searches and found a few articles about managing APFS snapshots with things like terminal commands, but since I already had CCC, that seemed to be the easiest way to deal with it. I think Disk Utility may also be able to do this.

 

[chown33]

I did some Google searches and found a few articles about managing APFS snapshots with things like terminal commands, but since I already had CCC, that seemed to be the easiest way to deal with it. I think Disk Utility may also be able to do this.

Here's what it can do:

View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on Mac, view a list of APFS snapshots, copy information about the snapshots, and delete them.

support.apple.com

DDG search terms: mac disk utility snapshots

 

[MarkC426]

Here's what it can do:

View APFS snapshots in Disk Utility on Mac

In Disk Utility on Mac, view a list of APFS snapshots, copy information about the snapshots, and delete them.

support.apple.com

DDG search terms: mac disk utility snapshots

OP note: this is only on recent versions of MacOS.
This facility is not on older versions.

I am on Mojave, but have the same utility in TechTool Pro.

 

[Jeven Stobs]

"what else is there?"
The files still take up space when in the trash - so, "what else...?" remember to empty the trash when you are done.
I know... But, I still encounter questions from users who think dragging files to the trash somehow releases space on the drive.
And, did not know that emptying the trash was a "thing"

Tell them
“Does putting stuff in your trashcan actually remove it?”

 

[kschendel]

Out of interest, someone asked me how I deleted files.
Other than putting them in the trash, what else is there?

The rm command inside a terminal window, which immediately deletes the files. I don't know if that would have made anything work differently, assuming that the slowdown was mdworker redoing the Spotlight index to remove references to the deleted files.

 

[NoBoMac]

For your browser(s), why not clear cache and cookies? I've seen in the past where browsers that are setup to retain all their history, browser winds up dealing with lots of crud. And if there is some corruption going on in the cache, another potential pain point.

And possibly close a few tabs? Since each tab/window of a browser is, in essence, an instance of the browser, 10 tabs open are 10 browser sessions. Add in animations etc running on the page, can be a resource hog.

 

[Fishrrman]

I use CCC with Mojave (2018 Mac Mini).
I have snapshots TURNED OFF and will never turn it on.
I don't use time machine (never have used it), so no snapshots are being created.

The Mini has run just fine for 3 years now without messing with any of this crud...

 

[Peter Franks]

Thanks for all responses to this, I don't know what or why, but this has been acting strangely ever since the clear out. It's still not right, even when CPU isn't necessarily doing anything of note, Truth be told, I wanted to see if my MBP 2011 running Sierra is still a viable option or whether or not I need a new MB/P? I think maybe the shelf life is evident now. I did upgrade it several years ago from 4GB to 8GB and a 500GB SSD thanks to good advice from this forum, and was happy for the most part, but I do think that maybe it's now time? I don't see much untoward to warrant why it's doing what it is but the MBP doesn't owe me anything. It's been great for 11 years and that's more than I've had from anything that came before it. I've put it off because I don't think the ports on the current stuff are overly generous, And you get a lot less storage for your buck, so persevering with this still....

 

[Alpha Centauri]

@Peter Franks . Another tool for diagnostics, is to create an fresh new account to check if the same problems exist within. This will at least eliminate a wider global issue you may be having.

Edit {by "fresh account", I meant a secondary account. Not a reinstall as such. Only takes a couple minutes}.

 

[hobowankenobi]

I don't think it has been mentioned, but if a modern SSD is slow, that can mean trouble. Typically they don't slow as they fill like rotating disks do. Outside of spotlight indexing, I don't see a lot of normal things slowing modern SSDs on Macs.

Be sure your backups are in order, should storage go south. While they often are solid for many years, it could be possible it is time for a new SSD.

If you don't want to put $ into an older machine, it would be a good time to migrate to something new(er), then wipe the drive and perform a fresh install to see how it behaves.

 

[Peter Franks]

Thanks again, all good advice
Never wondered what shelf life of SSDs are

I can't believe the MBP don't start at 500GB as standard these days. Makes little sense.
Mind you, we are talking about a company that has got away with selling phones without a charger