Everything is incredibly slow for no apparent reason

[Namok88]

Slowdowns of Finder or file requesters in apps can also be caused by symlinks with original files located in network storage too.

Especially on NFS and SMB network shares.

 

[interobang]

Known problem causer, especially the Finder issues you've been experiencing and the sheer number of drives. It's a choice thing, obvs. I understand there are reasons people use this trick, but for data integrity, when apps distribute their load so broadly ...

Interesting. Well maybe when I can afford a larger NVMe M.2 card, I'll get everything back onto the same drive. Do you think there would be a system speed difference between system drive on M.2 card and system and home drive on SATA SSD?

 

[interobang]

type the following in the terminal and post a screenshot or copy paste with the code tag here.

diskutil list

The disk you want to erase is disk4, so we need to get rid of all its hidden partitions as well.

If I've disconnected and reconnected the disc since that last post, will the name of the disc (ie disc4) have changed?

here is that screengrab:

 

[interobang]

Yes! I have noticed this before. Why do they have EFI partitions? I have no idea how this happened. Some noob mistake during several installations I'm sure. But I would be happy to get rid of them. All of my drives are backed up, so I am happy to wipe the working drives and clone the data back to them, minus the EFI partitions.

@UtterDisbelief , I would really appreciate your input on this question.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

@UtterDisbelief , I would really appreciate your input on this question.

Hi there.

Firstly I don't recommend wiping any drives that contain data, even if you back it up. This is because symlinks and other OS weirdness, may be already set in place on the drive the program lives on.

So just for the sake of explaining what I meant, forgive me if you know this already ...

When you Partition a drive as GUID/GPT it automatically creates a 200MB-ish EFI partition before the main drive area. How you Format the drive is a separate issue. Some mixes are recommended while others not.

You can, for example, partition a drive with the MBR scheme but still format it as HFS+. Counter-intuitive I know. But his method does not create the EFI partition. So you just have a Mac format drive. You can also use Apple Partition Map instead of MBR.

You need to set 'Show All Devices' in the 'View' menu of Disk Utility then select the physical drive:

I'm not suggesting one way is safer or more correct than another, just that you have the option. For us, more than one EFI folder can sometimes fool an installer or boot sequence.

The latest APFS system uses virtual drives or containers on a single physical drive - Physical or Synthesized. This is for data security. It makes the disk ID numbers seem strangely out of sync with the actual drives.

 

[interobang]

So what should I do with this drive?
I have run a first aid on it successfully, and it did not find anything wrong.
I cannot low level format it even if I wanted to.
I cannot replace the drive because:

ymlinks and other OS weirdness, may be already set in place on the drive the program lives on

But I need the drive (or a replacement) to be working ASAP, so I can carry on with my work.

 

[interobang]

@Namok88
So what do I do with this drive?
I've posted my drive list above. Now what? If it's possible to save the drive, I would like to. Even if I have to completely erase it. But I cannot seem to even do that.

 

[Namok88]

You can zero it out with dd command in the terminal

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdisk# bs=65536 count=1000

Replace # with the disk number you want to erase.

WARNING: you must triple check that number with Disk Utility app (View >> Show All devices >> select that disk (not its volumes below) in the side bar. The disk number will show at the bottom right of it (Device: disk#).

If the dd command says the disk is busy, you must unmount it with the following command and try again.

sudo diskutil unmountDisk /dev/disk#

Replace # with the disk number you want to unmount.

 

[interobang]

You can zero it out with dd command in the terminal

Ummmm, ok, this is weird.
So I just did a complete new fresh install of the latest OSX. On a new drive, and I have a nice new fresh install with slightly different drive configuration. But all my SATA ports and M.2 PCIe ports are populated. And I've done away with the PCIe SATA expansion card. I popped that offending HDD into the drive toaster to give it another whirl at erasing with your advice above, and what do you know, it erased straight up in Disc Util without any issues, first time. To add to this there was no lag in Disc Util, that this drive was previously causing, and neither in the finder. I didn't have to go and unmount it manually before erasing. What do you reckon that's all about?

I had decided that I did not want the potential pitfalls of the split Home and System drives, and with so many apps that are file read and write heavy, I decided a fresh install was the go. And everything is super fast. So I'm happy.

One last question. What should I do with this "problem" drive? Do I just consider the whole issue a problem of my now-defunct old system. Or should I investigate the health of this drive to make sure it's safe to use?

 

[Namok88]

Sorry for the late reply, I've been busy recently and completely forgot to check my notifications.

You can still try to use that drive and if it starts creating issues again, you'll know that it is physically damaged.

Check its health with a S.M.A.R.T compliant app.