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Problems copying big files from/to ext drives

F

ferjilo

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 1, 2015
108
42
w Polska
Hello

I have an iMac retina 27 (since 10 months ago) and since I have El Capitan (Im not 100% sure but i didn't have these issues at the beginning) I have many problems when copying big files (from 2-3 GB) from/to external drives. I thought it was my old external 1TB HDD that was dying but now I have a brand new Seagate 2TB and it happens the same, also if I copy from an SD card from a video camera ir happens the same.

The problem is sometimes it just gets stucked (and stops copying) and you have the dialog opened copying and at the end I have to restart Finder. I am trying also a file commander "Commander One" that seemed to fix it but today it is having the same :-(

Any ideas what can it be? I haven't found anything around... When I download a big file a extract it in my internal SDD I have detected no issues.
 
Several possible issues to look into here:
  1. Go into Disk Utility with the external disk connected, and see if it reports a SMART status. If it does, and it says "Failing" your disk is having problems.
  2. While in Disk Utility, see if you can repair the disk. It might not let you if the disk isn't formatted with the OS X native file system.
  3. If the above two steps fail, check your Console.app in Utilities. This is where your system log files can be viewed. It's also where you'll find crash logs. TIP: Search for Commander One (or Finder, or kernel) to filter the log. I'd be happy to help interpret logs.
 
Same here, but with MacBook and using WD Green 1 and 2TB drives, not large fikes but say 2000 jpeg files totalling 250MB.

Worse when I enable Paragon NTFS latest version (drives are NTFS, seems Apple must have improved on native reading NTFS than in past.

Still need to do more - I have some WD Black 3.5's as well as 2.5" drives. I want to erase once I have theor data copied over, cloned, and in TimeMachine.

No issues what so ever found by Disk Utility, booting into recovery or system clone so it wasn't the boot drive.
 
wrldwzrd89 said:
Several possible issues to look into here:
  1. Go into Disk Utility with the external disk connected, and see if it reports a SMART status. If it does, and it says "Failing" your disk is having problems.
  2. While in Disk Utility, see if you can repair the disk. It might not let you if the disk isn't formatted with the OS X native file system.
  3. If the above two steps fail, check your Console.app in Utilities. This is where your system log files can be viewed. It's also where you'll find crash logs. TIP: Search for Commander One (or Finder, or kernel) to filter the log. I'd be happy to help interpret logs.
Click to expand...

Smart status for both my new SDD and an external SD card (connected via USB) says "Incompatible". I made a verification on the SDD and everything was fine (it is formatted in Mac OS Plus)
 
ferjilo said:
Smart status for both my new SDD and an external SD card (connected via USB) says "Incompatible". I made a verification on the SDD and everything was fine (it is formatted in Mac OS Plus)
Click to expand...
Sadly, USB devices don't support SMART health checks on OS X. So this is to be expected.
 
External USB drives typically don't support SMART (although some in a UASP enclosure might). You should be able to get a SMART status on the internal SSD. I noticed that in English it will say "Not Supported" but in at least some other languages it will be the equivalent of "Incompatible".

As for your not being able to copy properly to the external HDD, here are some possibilities:

1) The external HDD is not formatted in HFS+. You mentioned that the SSD and SD card are HFS+, but what about the HDD? If it's formatted FAT32, there is a 4GB file size limit. There's also a limit to the number of files (65,534 I think) to FAT32. If it's NTFS, you need a driver and there have been driver compatibility issues in El Capitan.

2) There have been compatibility issues with some of the software that come with external USB drives and El Capitan. I think most of the issues are with WD and Toshiba software. If you're using such software, try disabling or uninstalling it.

3) If you're using a USB hub, there can be problems with the hub - try connecting directly to the computer.
 
Thank you. The external drive (sorry, not an SSD, only my iMac internal drive is an SSD) is formatted on Mac OS Plus, the sd card is formatted on ExtFat. The SSD is a Seagate, formatted by me, so I guess no other sw is involved.

I'm using the USB ports on my iMac. I will test copying big files to an SD card connected to the SD port, to compare the behavior of the usb and sd ports.

PS: my OS X is in Spanish, so the "not supported" is translated as "incompatible", good guess ;-)


treekram said:
External USB drives typically don't support SMART (although some in a UASP enclosure might). You should be able to get a SMART status on the internal SSD. I noticed that in English it will say "Not Supported" but in at least some other languages it will be the equivalent of "Incompatible".

As for your not being able to copy properly to the external HDD, here are some possibilities:

1) The external HDD is not formatted in HFS+. You mentioned that the SSD and SD card are HFS+, but what about the HDD? If it's formatted FAT32, there is a 4GB file size limit. There's also a limit to the number of files (65,534 I think) to FAT32. If it's NTFS, you need a driver and there have been driver compatibility issues in El Capitan.

2) There have been compatibility issues with some of the software that come with external USB drives and El Capitan. I think most of the issues are with WD and Toshiba software. If you're using such software, try disabling or uninstalling it.

3) If you're using a USB hub, there can be problems with the hub - try connecting directly to the computer.
Click to expand...
 
The ExFat file system doesn't have the same limitations as FAT32 so I think that should be OK. What you can try is to open the "Console" application which is in the /Applications/Utilities folder. By default "All Messages" should be selected. Do a file operation and if there's a problem, see if anything appears in the log. I would expect Finder or another file utility app to report errors but maybe it isn't being reported and it may appear in the log. You may have other messages that appear but just look for something file-related.
 
Hi

I downloaded a 4.8GB file to test it again, it got stuck after 2,41GB copied. I got a couple of messages at starting the copy (not when it gets stuck; the copy dialog just stays there...). I attach here the messages I got, don't seem related for me but let's give a try... and thanks!!



Edit: I tried to copy from the Terminal (using cp command) the same file that I tried 3 times using Finder and with Terminal it was copied without any issues, so I guess it might be some issue with Finder (or the GUI, as Commander One also has issues).


treekram said:
The ExFat file system doesn't have the same limitations as FAT32 so I think that should be OK. What you can try is to open the "Console" application which is in the /Applications/Utilities folder. By default "All Messages" should be selected. Do a file operation and if there's a problem, see if anything appears in the log. I would expect Finder or another file utility app to report errors but maybe it isn't being reported and it may appear in the log. You may have other messages that appear but just look for something file-related.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
That's interesting that it works in Terminal. If you're comfortable using Terminal, you might just want to use that. I use Terminal to copy/move/delete files, I rarely use the Finder.

One possible reason why there is a problem is that Spotlight is trying to index the big file and for whatever reason, it gets stuck (that's what the log that you posted may be). You can try telling Spotlight not to index the external drive - to do this, go into System Preferences, select Spotlight (on the top row), select the "Privacy" button. Towards the bottom of the screen will be a "+" button. Press that and select the external drive and press the "Choose" button. See if you can copy to the external drive with the Finder. If you still get stuck, then that would suggest that for whatever reason, the Finder is not only copying the file (because that works in Terminal), but trying to discern the content of the file as well (presuming the log you posted above was generated by the file copy). I don't have an answer as to why it would do that.
 
Thank you very much treekram. I think it is finally some issue related with previewing/reading the files while copying, as you stated. If I right click to the file (WITHOUT being previously selected, so "it is not highlighted in blue") and paste it, it works perfectly always. I will try then to remove the indexing but at least I have 2 working solutions (terminal & right-click)! Thanks a lot.

treekram said:
That's interesting that it works in Terminal. If you're comfortable using Terminal, you might just want to use that. I use Terminal to copy/move/delete files, I rarely use the Finder.

One possible reason why there is a problem is that Spotlight is trying to index the big file and for whatever reason, it gets stuck (that's what the log that you posted may be). You can try telling Spotlight not to index the external drive - to do this, go into System Preferences, select Spotlight (on the top row), select the "Privacy" button. Towards the bottom of the screen will be a "+" button. Press that and select the external drive and press the "Choose" button. See if you can copy to the external drive with the Finder. If you still get stuck, then that would suggest that for whatever reason, the Finder is not only copying the file (because that works in Terminal), but trying to discern the content of the file as well (presuming the log you posted above was generated by the file copy). I don't have an answer as to why it would do that.
Click to expand...
 
I copy large HD video files from a USB3 SD card reader every day and it works fine at initial upload to being copied between my various external HD. However, I frequently suffered copy errors/stoppage when the HD or reader was plugged into a hub. Once I plugged everything directly into my Mini, all was well.
 
My devices are directly plugged into my iMac USB ports, I was worried it was an issue with my motherboard/usb.

Go Terminal Go ;-)
 
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