Very Slow OS X Hard Drive Performance? Read This...

[dmw16]

So about 6 months ago my wife's 2008 MBP started running very slowly. Constant beachballs and so on. It got progressively worse until last weekend where it was unbearable.

I did a Disk Speed Test and it returned less than 15MB/s in both read and write. So I ordered a new hard drive. Put the drive in and performance was almost as bad. It took all night to install OS X and even then it was very very slow. The new drive was running 30MB/s in the same drive speed test. Which suggested her old drive was worn out, but not the only issue.

So I did some googling and stumbled on a case where people with slightly older MBP's were downgrading their EFI firmware from 1.7 to 1.6 and having results.

I tried this on her computer and now read and write speeds are in the 100MB/s range and things seem much better.

Just wanted to share. Here's a link with a how-to and the file needed.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4847773?start=0&tstart=0

 

[Eug]

Weird. I wonder what the problem is. I've never encountered it.

However, the best solution for that model may just be to buy an SSD. That's what I did for my 2009 MacBook Pro. It's just feels so much faster, even with a "slow" SSD.

 

[TheStu]

Weird. I wonder what the problem is. I've never encountered it.

However, the best solution for that model may just be to buy an SSD. That's what I did for my 2009 MacBook Pro. It's just feels so much faster, even with a "slow" SSD.

I wonder if there are more things in common than just the EFI update, if only because it doesn't seem to affect everyone.

 

[dmw16]

No doubt an ssd will perk up an aging system, but this issue was a totally different level of slow and an ssd would not help. It might mask the issue, but not resolve it.

In further reading the issue seems to be older hard disk cables. Perhaps the reason not everyone is affected has to do with when apple internally switched to the newer HD cable. So that's the real fix if you have this issue and want to run Lion or Mountain Lion (which both need EFI 1.7 I think).

I'm just a bit annoyed about this on Apple's part. I was close to discarding this laptop and going out to spend $1500 on a new one. With this fix its happily humming along once again.

 

[Nothinman]

Weird. I wonder what the problem is. I've never encountered it.

However, the best solution for that model may just be to buy an SSD. That's what I did for my 2009 MacBook Pro. It's just feels so much faster, even with a "slow" SSD.

Buying new hardware isn't always the answer. If EFI has a firmware bug that's limiting I/O on a drive that can do 100MB/s down to 15MB/s why do you think an SSD will fare much better? If you have an SSD that does 300MB/s you may be stuck with 30MBs, which doesn't really make it worth it, does it?

 

[QueHuong]

I've been having similar problems on a brand new latest Mac mini. It's not unbearably slow, but in many simple operations, I get a 1-3 second beachball for things like right-clicking to copy a text. It's not all the time, but about every 10 mins. It's so bad that Text Expander doesn't work well because the slow response somehow overfill the buffer or something. Your post provided a starting point (the firmware) for investigation for me. If anyone can offer suggestions that, that'd be appreciated.

 

[dmw16]

I've been having similar problems on a brand new latest Mac mini. It's not unbearably slow, but in many simple operations, I get a 1-3 second beachball for things like right-clicking to copy a text. It's not all the time, but about every 10 mins. It's so bad that Text Expander doesn't work well because the slow response somehow overfill the buffer or something. Your post provided a starting point (the firmware) for investigation for me. If anyone can offer suggestions that, that'd be appreciated.

It's possible that it's a similar issue. The slow downs far exceed what you'd get from an aging computer. Look around, I recall seeing something about the Mac Mini having similar issues, but that wasn't what I was trying to fix so I didn't really follow it.

 

[aman74]

Interesting post. I'm on an older hand-me-down MBP from my brother, probably from around that year. Mine slows down constantly. I can do a reboot and then it's ok for a bit and starts to slow almost immediately. Even moreso after it goes into sleep mode. I'll try your fix, but it's disconcerting to hear there was also a cable issue. That's on top of the fact that my model has the overheating issue, it kills batteries and the screen buzzes. This laptop was well taken care of. I chalked it up to them having a bad model run, but the more I read the more I hear about issues with many of their lines.

I was considering a mini and now that has an issue like this as well. It also has a wifi issue. I thought we were paying the premium for premium quality?

I didn't want to mess around with a hackintosh, but I'm gonna read into it and see just how much of a pain it is.

 

[dmw16]

Interesting post. I'm on an older hand-me-down MBP from my brother, probably from around that year. Mine slows down constantly. I can do a reboot and then it's ok for a bit and starts to slow almost immediately. Even moreso after it goes into sleep mode. I'll try your fix, but it's disconcerting to hear there was also a cable issue. That's on top of the fact that my model has the overheating issue, it kills batteries and the screen buzzes. This laptop was well taken care of. I chalked it up to them having a bad model run, but the more I read the more I hear about issues with many of their lines.

I was considering a mini and now that has an issue like this as well. It also has a wifi issue. I thought we were paying the premium for premium quality?

I didn't want to mess around with a hackintosh, but I'm gonna read into it and see just how much of a pain it is.

It sounds like you have the exact issue I had with my wife's computer. It was especially awful coming back from sleep mode.

I don't think it's a cable issue per-say. It's an issue of an older style cable not being totally compatible with a new firmware. If it were a PC this would seem minor, but it is below the standard we all expect from Apple.

The rest of the issues you mention are not something I've seen. We've had 3 Macbook Pros, and 2 White Macbooks and all have been stellar considering the use they get. My wife's 3 year old MBP still runs better than any 3 year old PC laptop I've ever owned.

 

[bearxor]

I need to try this when I get home. i have a 2008 MBP with a SATA3 SSD in it and the thing is just dreadful. I know it wasn't like that when I first put it in, but bogged down at some point. Was thinking about wiping and starting over but kept putting it off because I only use it about once a month. But I used it last night and couldn't do anything. A 3.3GB file copy from one directory to another took 15 minutes.

I'll report back what I come up with.

 

[dmw16]

I need to try this when I get home. i have a 2008 MBP with a SATA3 SSD in it and the thing is just dreadful. I know it wasn't like that when I first put it in, but bogged down at some point. Was thinking about wiping and starting over but kept putting it off because I only use it about once a month. But I used it last night and couldn't do anything. A 3.3GB file copy from one directory to another took 15 minutes.

I'll report back what I come up with.

Cool.

If for some reason you can't track down the file I have a copy.

 

[bearxor]

Cool.

If for some reason you can't track down the file I have a copy.

I didn't bother messing with it last night. Hopefully tonight! I'm not hitting the gym so I'll have a couple extra hours.

 

[bearxor]

It looks like this might be for unibody models only. The firmware wouldn't flash on my 2008 MBP, pre-unibody, and I did a little more reading. Looks like it's for Late 2008 and up only.

Sucks because I ran the speed test last night and I'm getting like 10-15Mbps write speed and 133Mbps read speed. The read speed is fine, but the write speed is way too slow for a SATA2 SSD. It should be topping the SATA controller of the MBP out at 133Mbps as well.

 

[dmw16]

It looks like this might be for unibody models only. The firmware wouldn't flash on my 2008 MBP, pre-unibody, and I did a little more reading. Looks like it's for Late 2008 and up only.

Sucks because I ran the speed test last night and I'm getting like 10-15Mbps write speed and 133Mbps read speed. The read speed is fine, but the write speed is way too slow for a SATA2 SSD. It should be topping the SATA controller of the MBP out at 133Mbps as well.

My co-worker has a pre-unibody as well and the symptoms seem similar, but you'll probably need to track down the proper EFI. I think this set of links only gets you the unibody EFI.