why MacOS is so slow when browsing network drives ?

[ovisopa]

Hello everyone,

I just moved my daily work to a M2 Pro Mac Mini, there are a few things that bothers me but I'm curious if there is anything to do to speed up network drives browsing?
Today I decided to record the screen, after waiting more than 30 seconds to open a folder, I started the screen recording , swipe with 3 fingers twice to move to my windows VM to show you that this stupid crazy behaviour is just because of MacOS, not the lan hardware or drive. As you can see in windows it instantly browsed to that folder, and windows is running in this same Mac Mini, not on a different machine.

Also, is there a way to set mac to NOT create the . hidden files for each file it interacts in my network drive ? .. it seems really stupid to me, I don't understand why it needs to create an hidden file for each file that it opens

 

[Bigwaff]

Also, is there a way to set mac to NOT create the . hidden files for each file it interacts in my network drive ?

There are many different solutions. Google is your friend. Here is one -

.DS_Store, ._AppleDouble, .Folders. BlueHarvest.

BlueHarvest automatically removes DS_Store files, ._ AppleDouble files and hidden folders such as .Trashes from your USB keys, SD cards, file servers.

www.zeroonetwenty.com

 

[galad]

Probably it's trying to do something stupid like creating thumbnails icons, and whatever.

Anyway, the macOS SMB implementation has never been any good.

 

[Brian33]

Apple says you can prevent the .DS_Store files, improving performance, with a simple 'defaults write' command: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102064

Worth a try. Remember to log out, then back in.

 

[f54da]

galad nails it, osx is just too chatty over network shares. I think you can disable thumbnail generation in finder just for the network share

 

[BrianBaughn]

There are Finder alternatives out there…I was just reading about a few. I didn't look for behavior regarding network drives but I'm wondering if any of the alternatives would be a significant improvement when accessing them.

 

[MacGizmo]

There are Finder alternatives out there…I was just reading about a few. I didn't look for behavior regarding network drives but I'm wondering if any of the alternatives would be a significant improvement when accessing them.

I started using Forklift years ago to solve this very problem (connecting to network drives, particularly over a VPN). Just clicking on a folder could stall the computer for 5 to 10 seconds, opening a folder containing a few items could take 1-3 minutes, and clicking on a large Photoshop file (notice I said CLICKING ON) could take 10 minutes. Forget about copying the file on/off the drive... it was painful.

Using any of the major Finder alternatives solved the issue, I just happen to have settled on Forklift.

 

[schnaps]

"Commander One" and "Double Commander" work with the network very quickly and well.