Connectivity and indexing - external HD - MacBook Pro Retina 2015

[amccallum1]

Hi All –

[This post follows https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/indexing.2468231/]

After fantastic help from Apple Support today regarding my indexing problem, solved, thank you Apple. Will update that thread soonest.

Secondary issue: it turns out that accessing the external disk, a recent Western Digital 'My Book' 6TB spinner disk, is extremely slow through the USB cable supplied with the unit.

• The MacBook is this one: https://support.apple.com/en-us/111955 - its connections shown on that page.
• The external drive is this: https://www.westerndigital.com/prod...wd-my-book-usb-3-0-hdd?sku=WDBBGB0060HBK-NESN - its connector MICRO-B only – supplied with a cable with USB-A at the other end.

So: is there a way to connect the 'My Book' drive to the MacBook that would offer a speedier connection?

Thanks,

 

[chabig]

Unfortunately no.

 

[IJustWannaTalk]

That's a platter drive, right? They have, unfortunately, been working really slowly with Mac OS for many years.

 

[amccallum1]

Unfortunately no.

Thank you for the simple answer – much appreciated!

 

[amccallum1]

That's a platter drive, right? They have, unfortunately, been working really slowly with Mac OS for many years.

Good to know, thanks. What I might do is get another external drive, a modern SSD, and use that to store my data, then relegate the 'platter' (thanks for the term; we used to call 'em 'spinners' 😁) to be my Time Machine backup. I guess it's fairly reliable now the indexing issue seems to have been fixed, though pls say if you think different.

Any advice as I go looking for an external SSD? Thanks again.

 

[Fishrrman]

With a platter-based HDD, the problem is the drive's ability to "produce speed" -- not so much with the USB3 connection. HDDs are... well... slow by design limitations.

Having said that...
HOW MUCH SPACE have you currently used on the 6tb drive?
I could be wrong, but SSDs probably come in 4tb and 8tb, but not 6tb.

My favorite external SSD these days is the Crucial x9:

Crucial X9 4TB Portable SSD, Up to 1050MB/s, USB 3.2 USB-C, External Solid State Drive, Compatible with Windows, Mac, & Android, Reliable Storage for Games, Files, & Backups, Black - CT4000X9SSD902

The Crucial X9 4TB Portable SSD (CT4000X9SSD902) provides high-performance storage with read speeds of up to 1050MB/s, allowing for quick and efficient transfers of large files, including high-resolution photos, 4K videos, and gaming data. With its 4TB storage capacity, this external SSD is perfe...

www.amazon.com

USB3.1 gen2. Small and fast.

4tb limit on this one, however (unless I missed something)
You could always buy two...

 

[IJustWannaTalk]

Good to know, thanks. What I might do is get another external drive, a modern SSD, and use that to store my data, then relegate the 'platter' (thanks for the term; we used to call 'em 'spinners' 😁) to be my Time Machine backup. I guess it's fairly reliable now the indexing issue seems to have been fixed, though pls say if you think different.

Any advice as I go looking for an external SSD? Thanks again.

I always buy LaCie drives, usually the "rugged" version, for SSDs that I'm likely to be using/moving a lot.

I still use spinners/platters for backup or media storage, which work just fine.

 

[amccallum1]

With a platter-based HDD, the problem is the drive's ability to "produce speed" -- not so much with the USB3 connection. HDDs are... well... slow by design limitations.

Having said that...
HOW MUCH SPACE have you currently used on the 6tb drive?
I could be wrong, but SSDs probably come in 4tb and 8tb, but not 6tb.

My favorite external SSD these days is the Crucial x9:

Crucial X9 4TB Portable SSD, Up to 1050MB/s, USB 3.2 USB-C, External Solid State Drive, Compatible with Windows, Mac, & Android, Reliable Storage for Games, Files, & Backups, Black - CT4000X9SSD902

The Crucial X9 4TB Portable SSD (CT4000X9SSD902) provides high-performance storage with read speeds of up to 1050MB/s, allowing for quick and efficient transfers of large files, including high-resolution photos, 4K videos, and gaming data. With its 4TB storage capacity, this external SSD is perfe...

www.amazon.com

USB3.1 gen2. Small and fast.

4tb limit on this one, however (unless I missed something)
You could always buy two...

Fishrrman – thanks so much! Nicely explained about the speed and the Crucial X9 looks like a darlin'!

I've used about 2½ gigs of the six on the WD 'My Book'. See screen cap below and try not to laugh at the 'creation' and 'modified' dates that Mac OS cam up with.... Actually, since that 2½ GB is my lifetime's data (and I'm old already 🙄🤣), 4 gigs on the Crucial X9 should last me to the grave... likely irrational of me to opt for more capacity than I'll likely need as a 'safety margin' – by the time any expansion becomes necessary, there'll likely be even higher capacity drives available even cheaper and it'll be time to get new kit again anyway...

FWIW and maybe TMI, the 2½ gigs were on a mirror RAID that I created years and years ago using a couple of 4TB platters/spinners in two of the four drive bays of my beloved, dependable 2009 Mac Pro – which finally died a couple of weeks ago. RIP and thanks for everything that machine, including, as far as I can tell, no data loss. I put one of the RAID twins in an old Orico SATA case, plugged it into my (2015!) MacBook Pro, and it fired up immediately. Copying the 2½ gigs to the WD My Book took the best part of a day and *seemed* initially to have been flawed, gaps, though (I'm still checking 'manually', counting bytes), that is beginning to look like mis-representation by the early bad indexing, cured by the Apple support tech by kick-starting (ugh) Spotlight on the MacBook.

So, tell me what you think, but what I could now do is copy all the old RAID contents, currently on the WD My Book, onto a new external SSD drive like the Crucial, then use the My Book as a Time Machine backup disk, since (1) its slower response time won't be a nuisance in that role, and (2) it's big enough at 6TB to act as the backup volume for both the Crucial, external, and also the MacBook's internal drive. Two-for-one.

Please say if you see flaws in my cunning plan... 🤣🙄

Thanks again!

 

[Fishrrman]

"I've used about 2½ gigs of the six on the WD 'My Book'"

I'd suggest the 4gb external SSD.

Then, use either CarbonCopyCloner or SuperDuper to "clone" the contents of the HDD to the SSD.

Once that was done, the SSD will become the "primary external storage" drive.
The older HDD will continue to serve as a "cloned backup".

If you've never used a cloning backup app, try SuperDuper first.
It's VERY easy to understand and use.
It's also free to use forever, IF you just want to do "a full clone" (entire drive).
If you want to do "incremental" backups, then you need to register it.

You can get SD by clicking the link below:

https://shirt-pocket.com/mint/peppe...://shirt-pocket.com/downloads/SuperDuper!.dmg

 

[amccallum1]

With a platter-based HDD, the problem is the drive's ability to "produce speed" -- not so much with the USB3 connection. HDDs are... well... slow by design limitations.

Having said that...
HOW MUCH SPACE have you currently used on the 6tb drive?
I could be wrong, but SSDs probably come in 4tb and 8tb, but not 6tb.

My favorite external SSD these days is the Crucial x9:

Crucial X9 4TB Portable SSD, Up to 1050MB/s, USB 3.2 USB-C, External Solid State Drive, Compatible with Windows, Mac, & Android, Reliable Storage for Games, Files, & Backups, Black - CT4000X9SSD902

The Crucial X9 4TB Portable SSD (CT4000X9SSD902) provides high-performance storage with read speeds of up to 1050MB/s, allowing for quick and efficient transfers of large files, including high-resolution photos, 4K videos, and gaming data. With its 4TB storage capacity, this external SSD is perfe...

www.amazon.com

USB3.1 gen2. Small and fast.

4tb limit on this one, however (unless I missed something)
You could always buy two...

Doing my shopping'... Gotta ask – why is the Crucial 4TB external SSD $250 and (290 for the version 'Mac flagged'), but the LaCie 4TB external SSD is $400 and up?

 

[Fishrrman]

The LaCie drive you linked to above is USB4. Claims up to 4000MBps, but real-world speeds may be a bit slower (3000MBps?).

The Crucial drives are USB3.1 gen2 (also called USB3.2). 1000MBps speeds, fast, but not as fast as USB4. Real-world speed on these is usually around 925MBps or so.

If you buy a Crucial drive, DON'T BUY "the Mac version".
I'm going to take a wild guess that the ONLY difference here is that the "Mac" version comes preformatted in APFS.

So...just get the plain old version and format it yourself using disk utility.
Works just fine and you save money.

For regular data storage, US3.1 gen2 is probably "fast enough".
It is for me.

If you're going to be BOOTING FROM the external SSD, then USB4 might be worth the extra money. Another use case might be for heavy-duty video editing from the external drive (such as a lot of 4k video).

But again, for most uses -- especially backup -- USB3.1 gen2 is fine.
The differences in speeds may not even be noticeable...

 

[amccallum1]

The LaCie drive you linked to above is USB4. Claims up to 4000MBps, but real-world speeds may be a bit slower (3000MBps?).

The Crucial drives are USB3.1 gen2 (also called USB3.2). 1000MBps speeds, fast, but not as fast as USB4. Real-world speed on these is usually around 925MBps or so.

If you buy a Crucial drive, DON'T BUY "the Mac version".
I'm going to take a wild guess that the ONLY difference here is that the "Mac" version comes preformatted in APFS.

So...just get the plain old version and format it yourself using disk utility.
Works just fine and you save money.

For regular data storage, US3.1 gen2 is probably "fast enough".
It is for me.

If you're going to be BOOTING FROM the external SSD, then USB4 might be worth the extra money. Another use case might be for heavy-duty video editing from the external drive (such as a lot of 4k video).

But again, for most uses -- especially backup -- USB3.1 gen2 is fine.
The differences in speeds may not even be noticeable...

Aha! Perfectly explained, thanks – I have bought the Crucial and it should be here tomorrow. FWIW my continuing problem with the WD My Book HDD external drive is that it's erratic and often so slow on search as to be worthless. I'm hoping that it will be all right as a backup disk under Time Machine, but we'll see. I'm starting another post asking about optimal connections to the MacBook for all my peripherals: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/optimal-connections-for-2015-macbook-pro-retina.2469918/

 

[arcite]

Those external ‘platter drives’ do ok for data backup….but I would not rely on them for daily use. They have a habit of going into failure. Best to buy a discounted SSD external drive.

 

[amccallum1]

Those external ‘platter drives’ do ok for data backup….but I would not rely on them for daily use. They have a habit of going into failure. Best to buy a discounted SSD external drive.

Thanks v much. I went with the Crucial SSD and it seems to be working fine.

 

[amccallum1]

Fisherman et al –

Thanks again. As of this afternoon, all my data (1) has been successfully transferred to the new 4TB Crucial external SSD, great, and (2) backed up to the 6TB platter / spinner external drive, the Western Digital 'My Book' – using the 'Time Machine' built into Mac OS (12.7.6 Monterey, limited to that per prev).

Interesting small problem: Time Machine will NOT back up the Crucial external SSD. When I open it in 'Preferences',

... it automatically puts the external SSD 'off-limits' and it won't let me change that setting.

What do I do now? Sorry...

 

[amccallum1]

Aha! Perfectly explained, thanks – I have bought the Crucial and it should be here tomorrow. FWIW my continuing problem with the WD My Book HDD external drive is that it's erratic and often so slow on search as to be worthless. I'm hoping that it will be all right as a backup disk under Time Machine, but we'll see. I'm starting another post asking about optimal connections to the MacBook for all my peripherals: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/optimal-connections-for-2015-macbook-pro-retina.2469918/

As a small note in case it's helpful to others

 

[amccallum1]

Fisherman et al –

Thanks again. As of this afternoon, all my data (1) has been successfully transferred to the new 4TB Crucial external SSD, great, and (2) backed up to the 6TB platter / spinner external drive, the Western Digital 'My Book' – using the 'Time Machine' built into Mac OS (12.7.6 Monterey, limited to that per prev).

Interesting small problem: Time Machine will NOT back up the Crucial external SSD. When I open it in 'Preferences',

View attachment 2575765



... it automatically puts the external SSD 'off-limits' and it won't let me change that setting.

What do I do now? Sorry...

And the answer iiiiis... (thank you Dan from Apple Support): the Western Digital 'My Book' external platter/spinner drive needs to be re-formatted (we can use Mac OS Disk Utility) as APFS; and the Crucial SSD as Mac OS Extended.

Seems to be working okay now... 🤞