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Takes FOREVER To Boot From External APFS SSD

andrew5494

andrew5494

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 22, 2015
105
32
Toronto / The 6
Hey I just formatted my external USB 3.0 SSD running High Sierra to APFS and gosh does it take forever to boot up now.
Im not talking a few minutes, it takes literally twice as long to boot.
Has anyone else experienced this? Its not the USB 3 thats causing this as it worked fine on the previous format.
Any ideas?
Thanks :)
Untitled.jpeg
 
I'm seeing reports of slow startups on Apple Discussions. Booting from an external USB drive will be slower than booting from your internal drive. Have you considered replacing your internal HDD with the SSD external?
 
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dianeoforegon said:
I'm seeing reports of slow startups on Apple Discussions. Booting from an external USB drive will be slower than booting from your internal drive. Have you considered replacing your internal HDD with the SSD external?
Click to expand...
Ya, but i don't really feel like prying open my iMac screen lol
 
How long is "forever"? Have you timed it? :D

Do you have your external selected as the default boot drive in your Startup Disk pref pane?
 
I wonder if this is not related to changes in the way APFS handles TRIM commands and the lack of support for them via USB.

Has anyone reported these sort of slowdowns with Thunderbolt SSDs?
 
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DeltaMac said:
How long is "forever"? Have you timed it? :D

Do you have your external selected as the default boot drive in your Startup Disk pref pane?
Click to expand...
Just timed it from start-sound to login: 1 minute and 10 seconds
I have it set as the default boot.
[doublepost=1507058448][/doublepost]DELETED
 
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This thread is messing with me.

I have an external USB connected SSD that I had TRIM enabled for (self-set using the terminal command) and it was booting quite quickly (bear in mind I've only had an SSD for a week so it was much quicker than I was used to). After reading this thread I disabled TRIM now it takes 90 secs for the Apple logo to appear and 30 more for a live system.

That 90 second wait wasn't there before.

Additional detail my internal drive is borked so I have an external HDD with Sierra (HFS+) and an external SSD with High Sierra (APFS). The default boot is set to SSD.
 
There is clearly something wrong with HS apfs and boot times for sure. Seems to be related to trim. Hopefully the engineers at apple are aware of this and will fix it by the .1 or .2 update
 
hideous cheese said:
This thread is messing with me.

I have an external USB connected SSD that I had TRIM enabled for (self-set using the terminal command) and it was booting quite quickly (bear in mind I've only had an SSD for a week so it was much quicker than I was used to). After reading this thread I disabled TRIM now it takes 90 secs for the Apple logo to appear and 30 more for a live system.

That 90 second wait wasn't there before.

Additional detail my internal drive is borked so I have an external HDD with Sierra (HFS+) and an external SSD with High Sierra (APFS). The default boot is set to SSD.
Click to expand...
Sorry for the confusion... just rebooted and seems like its back to 1:10 :(
 
Hi guys,

Just to report that I am having this very same problem. When I connect a external SSD (SanDisk, USB 3.1 Gen 1, UASP) with macOS high Sierra, it takes almost 40s to show the Apple logo. No matter if I am booting to the SSD or the internal Fusion Driver. When I unplug the SSD, everything is fine.

After enabling verbose mode, I found the messages in the attached image right before entering the boot process. Those messages are not shown if the SSD is unplugged.

After searching, it seems to be related to TRIM and non-Apple SSDs. Notice that after the boot, the speed of the SSD is quite good (200 MB/s / 450 MB/s, write / read). However, I cannot say how it will damage the SSD because of this behavior.
 

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I have a 128Gb OCZ Vertex 4 SSD - I've had it for a while in my MacBook Pro which recently gave up the ghost after many years of service. I decided to take the drive out and mount in an external UASP USB 3.0 enclosure( Inateck FE2010) and attach this to my Late 2014 Mac Mini.

It's fair to say the Mac mini has always been extremely slow - so infuriatingly slow it made me refuse to use it. I attached the drive, formatted as APFS and installed High Sierra. With anticipation I awaited the completion of the install and when it finally rebooted I logged in. Crap. Still slow. Really slow. WTF.

Scratched my head, waited a while incase it was just an indexing issue. Nope still slow.

Searched internet - found this thread. Reformatted as HFS+ and reinstalled.

OH MY GOD. This thing is fast now - everything opens in one bounce on the dock. Brilliant.

Now I know it works I can buy a newer, faster SSD. Not sure what the issue was APFS, external SSD, UASP, OCZ or a combination of all but I do know it now works as expected.
 
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Ronis_BR said:
Hi guys,

Just to report that I am having this very same problem. When I connect a external SSD (SanDisk, USB 3.1 Gen 1, UASP) with macOS high Sierra, it takes almost 40s to show the Apple logo. No matter if I am booting to the SSD or the internal Fusion Driver. When I unplug the SSD, everything is fine.

After enabling verbose mode, I found the messages in the attached image right before entering the boot process. Those messages are not shown if the SSD is unplugged.

After searching, it seems to be related to TRIM and non-Apple SSDs. Notice that after the boot, the speed of the SSD is quite good (200 MB/s / 450 MB/s, write / read). However, I cannot say how it will damage the SSD because of this behavior.
Click to expand...

This appears to still be an issue even under a fresh install of 10.13.2. Specifics wise, when using a Samsung T5 500GB formatted as APFS connected via USB-C there is an abnormally long boot time similar to the one mentioned above. Reinstalling 10.3.2 on the same drive formatted as Mac OS Extended Journaled completely resolves the issue.

The only logical conclusion I can reach at this point is APFS was exclusively designed for Apple Branded internal SSD's. Perhaps it is a premature conclusion as I have to wonder why Apple would even allow an external drive to be formatted as APFS if this is the case.
 
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jbarley said:
dvdrsmth...
What is the point of quoting a post from last year, and then remaining mute, adding nor asking anything of value.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the call out. It was an error on my part; corrected.
 
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Ronis_BR said:
Hi guys,

Just to report that I am having this very same problem. When I connect a external SSD (SanDisk, USB 3.1 Gen 1, UASP) with macOS high Sierra, it takes almost 40s to show the Apple logo. No matter if I am booting to the SSD or the internal Fusion Driver. When I unplug the SSD, everything is fine.

After enabling verbose mode, I found the messages in the attached image right before entering the boot process. Those messages are not shown if the SSD is unplugged.

After searching, it seems to be related to TRIM and non-Apple SSDs. Notice that after the boot, the speed of the SSD is quite good (200 MB/s / 450 MB/s, write / read). However, I cannot say how it will damage the SSD because of this behavior.
Click to expand...


Hi, did anyone solve this. I have just updated my external usb ssd from old files system to apfs and had all sorts of problems. After reonstalling high sierrait now works but waits at least a minute booting up before apple logo appears....it was really quick on old file system
 
Is there anyway to check if TRIM is enabled on external drives. I don't see anything on System Report. I never set trimforce enable either so I'm assuming I don't have TRIM turned on but I'd like to know either way.
 
Boot times definitely seem slower for me, both internal and external SSDs
It hasn't been unbearable though, and since I rarely reboot anyway, it hasn't been a huge cause for concern
I do hope updates will optimize this as APFS matures
 
Another user with the same problem. External Samsung SSD 1TB with Mojave in APFS via USB3 as boot drive. Takes a couple minutes for the Apple logo to appear and then to load the OS. The internal fusion drive boots in less than a quarter of the time of the SSD!. Running 10.14.
 
Octavius8 said:
Another user with the same problem. External Samsung SSD 1TB with Mojave in APFS via USB3 as boot drive. Takes a couple minutes for the Apple logo to appear and then to load the OS. The internal fusion drive boots in less than a quarter of the time of the SSD!. Running 10.14.
Click to expand...
Same issue here. Bought a 1TB Samsung EVO 860 in a Black Friday deal with Sabrent enclosure, was super excited for those fast boot times but for me it’s 2-3 mins before the Apple logo even appears. Once booted apps load almost instantly, but that boot time kills me. Is this Apple not wanting us to boot from third party SSDs? Or a bug? Desperately hoping I have not wasted my money.
 
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