Fix Slow External Hard Drive on Mac
External Hard Drive Becomes Incredibly Slow after High Sierra Update
Since the High Sierra update, your external HDD is experiencing slow performance, freezing, and inaccessibility issues. It's unable to load contents and open files efficiently, and even formatting is suggested. This suggests a compatibility or driver issue with the update. You may need to reinstall drivers or try formatting the HDD in a different mode to resolve the issue.
If your external hard drive has suddenly become very slow on your Mac, don't worry, you're not alone. To speed it up without losing any data, you can try various methods. One possible solution is to reformat the external hard drive, which will erase all data, so make sure to back it up first.
| Workable Solutions | Step-by-step Troubleshooting |
|---|---|
| Part 1. Recover Data from Slower and Slower External Hard Drive |
Step 1. Download Qiling data recovery software for Mac |
| Part 2. Fix a Slow External Hard Drive on Mac |
Fix 1. Clean up useless duplicated files...Full steps |
How to Recover Data from Slower and Slower External Hard Drive
To recover data from an inaccessible external hard drive on your Mac, you'll need a Mac data recovery program. Avoid formatting the drive before a complete data recovery if an error message appears, instructing you to format it before use.
To safely export data from a slow external hard drive on Mac, download Qiling Mac drive recovery software and follow the three steps.
Step 1. Launch Deep Data Recovery software, select the desired file types, and click "Next" to initiate the recovery process.
Step 2. Select the disk location where you lost data and files, then click the "Scan" button.
Step 3. Deep Data Recovery for Mac will immediately scan your selected disk volume and display the scanning results on the left pane.
Step 4. To recover your lost file, select the file(s) from the scan results and click the "Recover" button to have them back.
How to Fix a Slow External Hard Drive on Mac OS X?
The performance of an external hard drive on Mac OS X can be affected by several factors, leading to decreased speed in file transfer or hard drive loading. Some examples include. (Note: I removed the "for your information" part as it's not necessary and the rest of the text is a list of examples, so it's better to rephrase it to a more general statement)
- Logic Errors & bad sectors on external drive
- Large size apps on the external hard drive
- Duplicate video, pictures and other files on external hard drive
- To resolve the issue of too many apps running while the drive is in active mode, you can try closing unnecessary apps or background processes that are consuming system resources. This can help free up memory and reduce the load on the drive.
- Long time in external hard drive defragmentation
- The external hard drive is too old
This page provides solutions to fix a slow external hard drive on Mac by identifying the cause, checking for software issues, updating the drive's firmware, and using third-party tools to optimize the drive's performance. After transferring all data files to a safe place with Deep Data Recovery for Mac, users can follow these steps to resolve the issue.
Solution 1. Clean up useless duplicated files from Mac external hard drive with Mac cleanup software
Large duplicate files, such as videos, photos, and music, can take up a significant amount of disk space on your Mac, leading to a slower hard drive. To boost your external hard drive's speed, start by cleaning up these duplicates to free up some disk space. This will help your Mac run more efficiently.
Here, we recommend you Qiling CleanGenius, the best Mac speedup software for you to deal with a burdensome Mac external hard drive.
Step 1. Launch Qiling CleanGenius and click on Duplicate Finder;
Drag and drop folders to scan or click the "Folder" icon to add a folder for finding duplicate files.
Step 2. Select target folder and click Open so to scan and find duplicate files;
Step 3. Right-click found file and select View to identify which one is the file that you want to keep;
Select unwanted duplicate files and click Delete to remove them from your Mac.
Solution 2. Repair Disk Utility to resolve the slow external drive problem
Repairing the Mac Disk Utility can also improve the performance of a slow external hard drive, making it worth trying immediately.
Step 1. Press down the Command + S keys to boot your Mac computer into the single-user mode.
Step 2. Type the behind command: fsck -fy
Step 3. After the fsck command, you will receive a message "file-system modified".
Step 4. Now reboot the Mac to continue the repairing process.
Other Mac external hard drive speedup tips
1. Activity Monitor Lookup: Monitoring the activity monitor on a Mac can sometimes help improve the performance of an external drive by identifying and addressing any issues that may be causing the slow running.
2. Proper StartUp items management: Managing the StartUp items on a Mac can be beneficial in improving the performance of external drives, as too many icons launching automatically in the background can slow them down. Properly organizing these items can help streamline the boot process and enhance overall system efficiency.
3. Visual effects Turning Off: Turning off visual effects on a Mac can also improve the performance of an external drive.
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