External Hard drive

[krs]

Hmmm..........

Bombich does not advise APFS bootable clones on spinner 2.5" drives

Can anyone elaborate on that?
My 2012 Mini came with a 5400rpm 2.5" HDD - does that comment by Bombich mean that when upgrading to Catalina, performance will be unacceptable?
I realize Bombich is talking about an external backup, but with a backup, hard drive speed is even less important than with the operational drive.
And I have used 2TB 2.5" external USB 3.0 drives to test run Mojave on the external - I saw no obvious reduction in performance - certainly nothing even approaching "unacceptable".
Is APFS with Catalina making it that much worse????

 

[chscag]

The only thing I can tell you is that Apple has stated that APFS is optimized for SSDs. They do not mention or warn about slow downs by formatting spinner drives to APFS. If that was the case, Apple would never have allowed fusion drives and spinner drives in their latest iMacs running Catalina to be formatted to APFS.

 

[Rod]

Did you read the link on “Unacceptable”? I’m just going by Bombich’s recommendations I cannot say how it might effect other uses.


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[krs]

So far I just glanced through the information in that link.

But towards the end it states:

Typically when you're using a filesystem, you're not attempting to enumerate the whole thing. Enumeration occurs when you're looking for something (not via Spotlight, but browsing through folders), and it occurs with gusto when you open up the Get Info panel on a folder. So when you're trying to see how large a folder is or browsing through several folders, that's going to take a lot longer on an APFS volume atop rotational media than it is on an HFS+ volume on the same hardware.

I actually browse through various folders quite often, so that taking a lot longer wouldn't make me happy

The other time that the performance difference will be starkly noticeable is when you're booting macOS from a rotational HDD. macOS seeks and stats thousands of files during the startup process, and if that's taking 15 times longer on a rotational disk, then your 30-second startup process is going to turn into 8 minutes. When the system does finally boot, the system and apps will still feel sluggish as all of your applications load, and those applications each stat hundreds of files. The system is still usable, especially as a rescue backup device, but it's not the kind of experience you'd want for a production startup disk nor for a high-stress restore scenario.

I usually don't shut my Mac down at all inless I'm forced to, but many people do.

Not sure if the author actually experiences a 15 times longer boot, but there has been the odd comment in this forum about people experiencing very long boot times with the newer macOS.
Maybe that's the reason.

 

[Rod]

Yes that has been my experience. Even just looking for a file or an app. It might take up to 4 min to see the contents of the Applications folder, even more to open Users > my name > Applications.
In the past I have been able to use CCC as a boot drive and work on it as I would the internal with a small, bearable lag but now it’s no longer really practical at least not on a HDD. Even using it as I did for a clean instal is a painfully slow process. The SSD (when it arrives) should be a big improvement.

 

[MizzLeeZ3]

Would you believe another problem? Tried to register new San Disk for warranty and unable to find the serial number. Tried all the numbers on the box--none worked. Looked on the back of the device and think I see some numbers very faintly but they are impossible to read. If possible, will try to call the company on Monday.

 

[Rod]

Should be on the package, back of the device (you’ll need a magnifying glass) and sometimes on the invoice. Hope that helps.


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[MizzLeeZ3]

Had a friend take a picture of the back of disk and with a magnifying glass able to discern the S/N. I could never have seen the number and it's absolutely ridiculous that it was so difficult to obtain. Sure hope the performance is better than this S/N debacle.

 

[Rod]

Well done. Just a handy hint as we age, I’m 67, I have an app (free) on my iPhone called Glasses, it offers 10X magnification plus light and macro photo function for all those hard to see things.

 

[RadDave]

Well done. Just a handy hint as we age, I’m 67, I have an app (free) on my iPhone called Glasses, it offers 10X magnification plus light and macro photo function for all those hard to see things.

Hi Rod - thanks for the 'Glasses app' recommendation - just did a DL to my iPhone and seems to work well! Dave

 

[MizzLeeZ3]

Really appreciate the suggestion to get Glasses app. Know it will be a great help in the future. Thanks so much.

 

[Slydude]

I'm going to check that out myself. I've used the Camera app for this a number of times. I'm curious to see if this is an improvement.

 

[jpdemers]

Wow...just wow. I really don't know what universe you are living in, or even how to respond.

Mods?

Should have been more clear - external HDs are what I was talking about. You can certainly find naked 3.5" drives for use internally.