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Mac Pro5.1 very slow with SSD, fine with HDD

My 4.1, flashed 5.1, 48GB ram and Radeon 5770 runs fine from 10.11.6 on a 1TB HDD. I installed a Crucial MX500 1TB SSD and copied everything from the HDD with Time Machine. Actually I did this stage in my earlier 3.1, which worked perfectly, then I swapped all the drives into the 5.1. If I boot from the SSD, after a few minutes the computer slows down: frequent beachballing when browsing, a lag of 1 - 6 seconds whatever I do eg moving files on the desktop or typing, and a 2.5MB Macdraft file takes 20 secs to open. Etrecheck reports below average performance. Because of this, and also because some saved music has developed holes, I assumed SSD issues, so I bought an EVO860 1TB and restored to it. The performance is just the same, ie unuseable. Booting from HDD, Etrecheck says the performance is 'good'. and the same file opens in 2 secs. I've tried: reset PRAM and SMC, clear cache using Safe Mode. DriveDX reports the SSD is fine. The SSD is less than half full. Pease can anyone help? Thanks, Alan

Mac Pro, OS X 10.11

Posted on May 6, 2021 5:09 AM

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Posted on May 6, 2021 9:32 AM

When the backup drive will be filled by the next backup, Time machine stops to notify you. It is not very good at understanding that it has notified you. So your best bet to make progress is to turn OFF notifications, giving Time Machine license to proceed to remove the oldest data without further notifications.


You can ADD an additional Time machine backup drive at any time. Time machine will create a new, stand-alone backup on the newly-added drive, and alternate backups -- every-other backup to every-other drive -- until a drive is removed.


There is more than one thing wrong with your current setup:


• You always want the smallest possible set of things in common between your backup drive and your primary drive. As currently implemented in a drive bay, a power surge could take out BOTH your backup drive and your Primary drive.


• Time machine does not benefit from a backup drive that is fast. You could get far more benefit from using that SSD drive for a different purpose.



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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

May 6, 2021 9:32 AM in response to Alan4385

When the backup drive will be filled by the next backup, Time machine stops to notify you. It is not very good at understanding that it has notified you. So your best bet to make progress is to turn OFF notifications, giving Time Machine license to proceed to remove the oldest data without further notifications.


You can ADD an additional Time machine backup drive at any time. Time machine will create a new, stand-alone backup on the newly-added drive, and alternate backups -- every-other backup to every-other drive -- until a drive is removed.


There is more than one thing wrong with your current setup:


• You always want the smallest possible set of things in common between your backup drive and your primary drive. As currently implemented in a drive bay, a power surge could take out BOTH your backup drive and your Primary drive.


• Time machine does not benefit from a backup drive that is fast. You could get far more benefit from using that SSD drive for a different purpose.



May 6, 2021 3:54 PM in response to Alan4385

Some Samsung EVO drives don't seem to be fast and reliable on a Mac. There is no consensus as to why.


One possibility [this is a guess] that has occurred to me is the possibility that they do not support Command-Queueing.


Here is part of (system report showing a drive that does. what does yours say?



Graphic provided by talented and hard-working Allan Jones



May 6, 2021 6:11 AM in response to Alan4385

If you have Etrecheck, there are two detailed items you can look at.


One is drive I/O speed, which will report the tested read speed and write speed for the boot drive. Writes are expected to be somewhat (but not massively) slower.


Another is whether TRIM is enabled on the boot SSD.

You definitely should have enabled TRIM. But you have to do that manually for each separate instance of MacOS. After you have to enabled TRIM, post back -- because their is one more non-intuitive step needed to reclaim your drive speed.

May 6, 2021 7:08 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks for that quick reply. The SSD reports write 227, read 272 MB/s, and the HDD reports write 127, read 122. I hadn't enabled TRIM because Samsung say they have their own version, but I will do that now and report back. Another glitch - I'm getting a message that the backup has failed because there is insufficient room on the backup drive (another 860 EVO in another drive bay) even though it's nowhere near full. I know an SSD isn't ideal as a backup drive, it was just convenient... I have another backup on an external HDD, I will plug that in when this is resolved.


I'll enable TRIM now. Wish me luck, I'm terrified of Terminal...

May 6, 2021 9:23 AM in response to Alan4385

The password it is looking for is the one that matches you Userid. You are forced to type it in blind, as Terminal does not echo your password as you type..


That drive at 272 read is not very speedy. The drives shipping an a MacBook Pro today exceed 2,500 for both read and write. Consider setting that drive aside, or placing it in an external enclosure for emergency use.

May 6, 2021 2:43 PM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

That's very helpful, thanks. I have a MBP I can put the TM SSD in, and revert to using the external HDD - I was backing up to both anyway, the SSD has only been in for a week. I somehow suspected it was a daft idea when I installed it.


I enabled TRIM after booting from the original MX500, and the computer works really well, thanks. I ran Etrecheck and the performance is 'Good'. However, when I boot from the EVO 860 it's still really slow with beachballing and scores 'below average' - this drive was brand new yesterday. The write/read speeds on both SSDs are still the same as before. I just want a working machine so I'm happy to just use the MX500 and find another home for the EVO. I did read somewhere that Samsung SSDs can have issues with TRIM, but I'm not too bothered, I can find another home for it. Many thanks again, I'm sorted.

May 7, 2021 7:50 AM in response to Alan4385

Firstly, I solved the TM backup problem: it was trying to back up both the internal drives and also a 1TB general backup partition on the 2TB external HDD (the remaining 1TB is the TM destination). I excluded the unnecessary items and it works fine.

DriveDX reports all 3 SSDs to be 100% EXCEPT the 860 EVO. The original MX500 with 2000 hours on-time and the second with 200 hours report 100% lifetime left but the Samsung with only 10 hours has 99%. Possibly a faulty drive?


Actually I'm not bothered by this, only interested. The problem is that, with only the MX500 startup drive and an old HDD installed, the computer still lags by a second or two when typing in Nisus Writer Pro, or moving folders around on the desktop, or browsing - opening a web page takes up to 6secs. Opening one 2.5Mb Macdraft plan takes up to 10 secs, but opening multiple other plans in another folder only takes a few. Opening all the pics in a 549Mb folder only takes 4 secs which to me is pretty quick, there is no lag when moving between pics. Etrecheck rates the performance as 'good'. Do you think reinstalling the OS might help?

May 7, 2021 7:19 PM in response to Alan4385

I don't see any obvious stinkers in your EtreCheckPro report, but I think this value might indicate something wrong with one of your drives.


Performance:

System Load: 1.60 (1 min ago) 1.97 (5 min ago) 1.59 (15 min ago)

Nominal I/O speed: 0.00 MB/s

File system: 30.78 seconds

Write speed: 226 MB/s

Read speed: 270 MB/s


I have an old, comparably slow SSD and mine still shows up as 0.28 MB/sec.

May 8, 2021 3:03 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thanks again. As we say here in Norfolk, thaa's a rum 'un. I will restore onto the newer Crucial and try that. Something slightly odd is that Etrecheck reports only 2000 hours use for the MX500 in the report I sent, but that drive was in use since 2019 in my previous MP 3.1 until I got the current 5.1 a couple of months ago, and I use the computer for several hours every day. Here's hoping...

Mac Pro5.1 very slow with SSD, fine with HDD

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