SSD diagnostic utility for OS X

[tcsenter]

Apple noob here. I am checking someone's Macbook Air 3,1 from late 2010, it has been patched to El Capitan 10.11.3. They have been reporting some hangs while using Safari on the net, no specific website or application scenario such as playing videos, just general. The system becomes unresponsive, the 'rainbow' busy pinwheel will come up and it either will hang there for several seconds before resolving, or will require a force closure of Safari or the webpage. No useful error messages appear. I have NOT reproduced this.

Ran system diagnostics (from within OS X), also Apple Hardware Diagnostics (booted into it), disk and filesystem checks. Everything comes back good. I deleted temp caches, temporary files, internet history, and that stuff. At any rate, it has a 64GB SSD with 28GB free space. I wanted to check the logs to see if there had been any blocks that are being replaced/remapped to spares, some wear-leveling events happening. Basically, I want to check the health metrics of the SSD but I cannot find anything that will report that stuff in more detail than just the user-friendly indicator or message.

I don't have enough savvy to know where the event logs and crash logs are, or to parse them. I might have cleared the older ones, too. Not sure, since I don't really know what I'm doing on a Mac. lol

 

[tcsenter]

Oh yeah, additional info: They don't have many apps installed (beyond the default that comes in OS X). Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Microsoft Office 2011. NO third-party extensions installed in Safari that I could find. They have one third-party game installed from the App Store; PokerStars.net. All those appear up-to-date.

 

[rugby]

how much ram in that machine? 64GB ssd means it's an older model.

 

[tcsenter]

2GB model

 

[TheStu]

My money is on the 2GB RAM being the real culprit here. I had the same model Air, with both a 64GB and 256GB SSD (system pull from ebay), and I never had issues like that with either drive. But I had 4GB RAM.

What utility would you use in Windows to test the SSD (both for my own edification, and to follow up with...), and have you tried searching for "<utility name> for OS X"?

 

[rugby]

2GB of ram is worthless these days.

 

[SearchMaster]

Yeah 2GB was pushing it when it was first released, now you've upgraded to an O/S that doesn't REQUIRE more RAM but pretty much assumes the machine will have it.

I'm a bit more of a power user but my late 2011 MBP was sluggish with its default 4GB RAM, now it runs pretty well on 16GB even without an SSD.

 

[Tegeril]

Is TRIM enabled on the SSD?

 

[n0x1ous]

https://www.cindori.org/software/disksensei/

 

[tcsenter]

Is TRIM enabled on the SSD?

Should be it's the original factory SSD but I'll get it back and check.

 

[rugby]

Should be it's the original factory SSD but I'll get it back and check.

That won't matter. 2GB of ram is the culprit.

 

[TheStu]

That won't matter. 2GB of ram is the culprit.

Yea, and unless OP's friend wants to replace the whole logic board, they're stuck. And that's probably pretty costly.

 

[nerp]

Up the memory to 8GB or 4 minimum. El Capitan will not run as fast as older OSX versions on that machine. Do a fresh install, a totally fresh install. Contrary to popular myth, Macs kludge up over time. I just wiped and reinstalled OSX on a mid-2010 MBP and a 2010 iMac. Both machines are MUCH faster and more responsive than before.

 

[tcsenter]

Revert back to a prior release (with latest minor updates)? Which one; 10.9, 10.10?

Is there a way to download the ISO for full clean install?

 

[TheStu]

Up the memory to 8GB or 4 minimum. El Capitan will not run as fast as older OSX versions on that machine. Do a fresh install, a totally fresh install. Contrary to popular myth, Macs kludge up over time. I just wiped and reinstalled OSX on a mid-2010 MBP and a 2010 iMac. Both machines are MUCH faster and more responsive than before.

Can't be done, MacBook Airs (MacBooks Air?) have non-user replaceable RAM, it's soldered to the logic board. The rMB is another step down that road, the SSD is soldered to the logic board as well. If the user wants more RAM in their Air, they need a whole new Air (or other system altogether).

Depending on their use, an iPad Air 2/3 (if it's released next month) may be a better fit.

 

[tcsenter]

Can't be done, MacBook Airs (MacBooks Air?) have non-user replaceable RAM, it's soldered to the logic board. The rMB is another step down that road, the SSD is soldered to the logic board as well. If the user wants more RAM in their Air, they need a whole new Air (or other system altogether).

Reportedly the SSD can be upgraded though there are some mixed results on performance, some people have experienced better or worse performance and boot times.

 

[TheStu]

Reportedly the SSD can be upgraded though there are some mixed results on performance, some people have experienced better or worse performance and boot times.

The SSD CAN be replaced/upgraded in the MacBook Air, but the RAM CANNOT.

I replaced the SSD in my old MacBook Air with another Apple one. There's also OWC (eshop.macsales.com) that makes SSDs for SOME MacBook Airs.

BUT

The RAM is the problem. There is no way around this. It has too little RAM for a modern OS. More RAM CANNOT be added to the system. A faster SSD isn't going to fix this problem, certainly not in a way that'll actually be worth the money.

To revert to an older OS, you should be able to follow this You can get at old version on the Mac App Store by going to the Purchased tab and looking it up. HOWEVER, that only works if they went 10.7 > .8 > .9 > .10, if they went straight from .7 > .11 then they're SOL for now.

 

[Tegeril]

That won't matter. 2GB of ram is the culprit.

It would if it had to write out to disk frequently and every write required a delete first. But yeah, the factory SSD should have it enabled. Was just checking.

2GB is definitely notable.