-
OSX slow down when external (USB) plugged
Hi,
A colleague of mine has a problem. He has a Macbook and when he connects his external (USB) HDD to the laptop the system is going slow for an ahour (he has tousands of photos on the disk). I think It makes some kind of indexing. After this hour the laptop is OKAY. Do you have any idea what makes this problem or how can I solve it?
Thanks
Gary -
3 Replies
-
Sounds like spotlight indexing to me. Run “top” in a terminal while that’s happening. See what’s running
Steve Modica
CTO, Small Tree Communications -
Gergo, another way to test would be to add the drive to the “Do Not Index” list under System Preferences > Spotlight > Privacy. This will prevent it from being indexed whenever it is plugged in. If it is indeed the spotlight indexing that is causing the sluggishness, this should help alleviate it. I have included a link below with a guide to the process (and how to undo it).
One note, when the drive is not connected from the machine, it will not appear in the list. Once you plug it back in, it should reappear.
Hope this helps.
https://www.usingmac.com/2008/5/9/spotlight-indexing
David Hall
Support Technician
New Media HollywoodApple Certified Technical Coordinator 10.6
-
Just to inform you about the solution. The software of the Western Digital external HDD used the 40% of the CPU and the 80% of the memory. We erased it (and disabled the indexing in spotlight).
Thanks for the help
Gary
Reply to this Discussion! Login or Sign Up