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zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
Hello guys, I upgraded my late 2015 27" iMac to Monterey from Mojave.

It's now taking some 5 minutes to startup from an external SSD. Mojave took less than a minute.

What is going on here? Any ideas? Thanks
 

DarkPremiumCho

macrumors 6502
Mar 2, 2023
276
177
Is this issue occurring right after the upgrade or after a few weeks? What is the model of the SSD, and how is it connected to the iMac?
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,767
4,591
Delaware
Booting to an external, and really slow boot?
What is the internal drive? Is it a fusion drive, or even an HDD (spinning hard drive)?
 

zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
Hi guys,
It happened straight away.
It is a sata wd 560MB/s, and it is connected by usb3 (read and write speeds of around 450MB/s.

There is no internal HD connected.

It worked perfectly before with mojave, and it is also very slow to startup on my 2017 MacBook air.
The air has Monterey as well on it's hd and is really fast to boot.
 
Last edited:

m4v3r1ck

macrumors 68030
Nov 2, 2011
2,608
559
The Netherlands
Boot-up and do a Spotlight Search and hit any letter, if you see the indexing (blue progress bar) working, that could be a major reason for a slow boot-up and use of programs. Try this to narrow down this as a possible cause.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,489
16,217
California
Try this... go to System Prefs and the Startup Disk pane and make sure the external SSD is set as the boot drive. If it is not selected, the OS spends time hunting around for available bootable drives, and that slows down the boot process.
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,767
4,591
Delaware
5 minutes to boot is pretty slow, even if the default boot drive is not selected.
You say the boot is also slow when you try on another Mac.
Did you try a different USB cable?
If there is no noticeable change, then I would suspect that your external is not too healthy.
Have you tried a simple test?
Boot to internet recovery,then open Disk Utility, Choose your external drive, and click First Aid.
 

zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
5 minutes to boot is pretty slow, even if the default boot drive is not selected.
You say the boot is also slow when you try on another Mac.
Did you try a different USB cable?
If there is no noticeable change, then I would suspect that your external is not too healthy.
Have you tried a simple test?
Boot to internet recovery,then open Disk Utility, Choose your external drive, and click First Aid.
The external SSD is a couple months old.
It was working perfectly fine before I installed Monterey on it.
 

zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
Try this... go to System Prefs and the Startup Disk pane and make sure the external SSD is set as the boot drive. If it is not selected, the OS spends time hunting around for available bootable drives, and that slows down the boot process.
It is
 
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zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
IMG_20230422_193539.jpg

I get this while repairing the disk. Is this a problem?
 

zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
I will, but I made a clean install of Monterey in a new partition, and it takes over 2minutes to start...

I may keep the upgraded version and just try to make it quicker.
 

zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
I am trying to keep a copy of my mojave system, I want to try upgrade it to big sur, maybe I won't get these startup issues, but running into problems:

I created a 500gb partition on my 2TB SSD. I tried 2 ways:

1 - format it as OSX Extended. It worked, but when I try to upgrade it to Big Sur (downloaded copy), it says the volume is not APFS, and it won't let me continue.

2 - format it as APFS, and then it won't let me use my time machine backup to put my mojave system back...

Any ideas?

Thanks
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,767
4,591
Delaware
I am trying to keep a copy of my mojave system, I want to try upgrade it to big sur, maybe I won't get these startup issues, but running into problems:

I created a 500gb partition on my 2TB SSD. I tried 2 ways:

1 - format it as OSX Extended. It worked, but when I try to upgrade it to Big Sur (downloaded copy), it says the volume is not APFS, and it won't let me continue.

2 - format it as APFS, and then it won't let me use my time machine backup to put my mojave system back...

Any ideas?

Thanks
1 - If you install Big Sur by booting to the Big Sur installer (use the bootable installer for that), the installer will automatically change the destination to APFS.
2 - Big Sur does not support time machine backups on APFS. The TM backup must be on OS X Extended.
I am sure that you need Ventura to use APFS volume for TM backups (maybe Monterey, but absolutely not yet supported on Big Sur system.

Can you show a screenshot/picture of the message that you get in the installer "volume is not APFS, cannot continue with install, etc."?
You also want to make sure that the partition scheme is "GUID", and not Master Boot Record, also not Apple Parition Map...
 

CoastalOR

macrumors 68040
Jan 19, 2015
3,032
1,151
Oregon, USA
2 - Big Sur does not support time machine backups on APFS. The TM backup must be on OS X Extended.
I am sure that you need Ventura to use APFS volume for TM backups (maybe Monterey, but absolutely not yet supported on Big Sur system.
I believe TM using APFS (Case-sensitive) started with Big Sur. I currently have a 2018 Mini running Big Sur and the TM Drive is APFS (Case-sensitive). TM is working fine.

EDIT: Big Sur converted a new TM drive from HFS+ to APFS (Case-sensitive) when I upgraded from Catalina to Big Sur.
 
Last edited:
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zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
1 - If you install Big Sur by booting to the Big Sur installer (use the bootable installer for that), the installer will automatically change the destination to APFS.
2 - Big Sur does not support time machine backups on APFS. The TM backup must be on OS X Extended.
I am sure that you need Ventura to use APFS volume for TM backups (maybe Monterey, but absolutely not yet supported on Big Sur system.

Can you show a screenshot/picture of the message that you get in the installer "volume is not APFS, cannot continue with install, etc."?
You also want to make sure that the partition scheme is "GUID", and not Master Boot Record, also not Apple Parition Map...
Well, I get this now, because I formatted the destination partition in APFS.
Time Machine is OS Extended (journaled).

If you want I can format my destination drive in OS Extended again and post the massage.

Thanks for your help!
 

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DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,767
4,591
Delaware
Still trying to erase?
if you can't erase the volume, select the device that volume is on, then choose erase for that.
Make sure that you have "Show all Devices" selected in the View menu for Disk Utility, then choose that device for your TM volume (the line that shows your device will have the manufacturer's info, not the name that you assigned to a volume.)
 

zalle

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 2, 2008
225
9
Still trying to erase?
if you can't erase the volume, select the device that volume is on, then choose erase for that.
Make sure that you have "Show all Devices" selected in the View menu for Disk Utility, then choose that device for your TM volume (the line that shows your device will have the manufacturer's info, not the name that you assigned to a volume.)
I can't do that. I have 2 partitions on the drive, and one of them is my OS (slow start monterey)
 

DeltaMac

macrumors G5
Jul 30, 2003
13,767
4,591
Delaware
Just a question: That drive that you show in your last screenshot appears to be your TM backup.
That's not your destination for your install - it's your backup - that you want to use to restore files to your new OS install. Why do you want to erase your TM backup now?
 
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