Requesting Advice Regarding Sluggish Performance

[Ormond]

So I have recently upgraded from a Macbook (Snow Leopard) with 2.13 processor and 2 gigs RAM to an iMac (Yosemite) with 2.7 processor and 16 gigs RAM, and...

Everything is going slower now. Hmm....

SYMPTOMS:

1) Unzipping a file which takes 15 seconds on Snow Leopard laptop takes 5 minutes on Yosemite iMac, and while it's unzipping accessing anything else is problematic.

2) Finder windows often slow to display contents of folder.

3) GraphicConverter browser slow to display preview icons.

4) Copying a folder with 3 small files brings up a progress bar, as if I was copying a huge folder.

In summary, processes which are snappy on Snow Leopard Macbook are often no longer snappy on Yosemite iMac.

THEORIES: As best I can tell the sluggish behavior is not limited to one or two apps, so my suspects for now are Yosemite, or perhaps the machine itself.

I can test this by installing Snow Leopard in a partition on the iMac, which would allow me to compare Snow Leopard to Yosemite on the same machine, hopefully ruling out the machine or an OSX version as the source.

Before I do all that work I thought I'd ask for input. Perhaps there are known issues at play here which I am not aware of? Any diagnostic tips?

Thanks!

 

[honestone]

OK, there could be a lot of reasons why. Also. quite a bit of this post will be repetitious, as I (and others) have mentioned quite a lot of it before (surprised you still have not grasped it!).

Additionally, a number of folks come here and expect an easy, almost "push one button" solution. Well, for most issues, that is just not going to happen, and especially with the complex issues like you are encountering.

First, I suspect it is a used iMac. So, the usual question is, what exact iMac model?

Secondly, no matter what kind of internal HDD it has (a (ugh!) slow 5400 rpm one, or a (somewhat) faster 7200 rpm one), how old is the drive?

Third, one has to wonder how much (here we go again!) disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs have been performed on the drive. And there could even be another issue, disk fragmentation, and whether any disk optimization has been done. Once again (man, how many times does this need to be said!), one needs a more robust disk cleanup/maintenance/repair program than Disk Utility. Tech Tool Pro would be ideal in this case, because besides all the useful and proven disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs tasks it has, it also can do File and Volume disk optimization. When I had HDD drives inside my Macs, I would use that feature, and it really helped.

Additionally, TechTool Pro will provide a good indication as to the "health" of the internal drive. That, of course, is critical.

Fourth, as an adjunct to TechTool Pro, there is the venerable, FREE software Onyx. It can do a good amount of disk cleanup, and the other thing it can effectively do is Repair Permissions. That is another area of concern regarding a used machine, and what is unknown about disk maintenance history.

Fifth, if there is any third party software on it, has such software been upgraded for Yosemite compatibility? And, even more basic, what version of Yosemite did the machine come with?

So, besides answering those questions, you should 1) download and install the applicable version of Onyx (http://www.titanium.free.fr/onyx.html), 2) purchase TechTool Pro (http://www.micromat.com/), and 3) of course do backups to an external device.

 

[iMav]

Definitely echoing honestone's reply.

First thing I would do is a wipe and clean install of the latest macOS release supported by the hardware. If it is still ridiculously slow, it could be a failing hard drive (or simply a dog slow one). And SSD would fix that right up.

 

[honestone]

Definitely echoing honestone's reply.

First thing I would do is a wipe and clean install of the latest macOS release supported by the hardware. If it is still ridiculously slow, it could be a failing hard drive (or simply a dog slow one). And SSD would fix that right up.

Exactly! And an SSD would definitely satisfy the saying, "I have the need, the need for speed".

 

[Ormond]

Thanks for the replies.

For what it's worth, I figured this out. I was working in a disk image at the time of the slogginess, and apparently Yosemite transfers data on and off such disks slower than Snow Leopard. Or at least is doing so on my machine. It took me a bit to realize the disk image might be the issue.

When I perform the same functions outside of a disk image everything seems to work as you'd expect, performance on a somewhat faster machine is somewhat faster.

 

[honestone]

That's good you got it working. But, you should still perform disk cleanup/maintenance/repairs. If you don't, you'll eventually get bitten!

 

[honestone]

Definitely echoing honestone's reply.

First thing I would do is a wipe and clean install of the latest macOS release supported by the hardware. If it is still ridiculously slow, it could be a failing hard drive (or simply a dog slow one). And SSD would fix that right up.

Yeah, especially if it is a slow, 5400 rpm drive! Such slow drives are good for external storage, but not much else. And if such a slow drive has had little (if any) disk maintenance, that is even worse!