Directory Load Times on a Mac


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Any help is appreciated on this topic.

 

After loading my photo collection to a share I noticed really long waits to load the directory on my Mac. I mean really long, like minutes. I figured it was because I was using SMB to access the drive on a Mac, so I added AFP. No change. Access from a PC is almost instant, it's really snappy. The problem seems to be only when accessing folders with a large numbers of files on a Mac, but since the primary use of this server is photo storage it makes it kinda unusable. Ugh.

 

I hope someone might point me to a solution. Thanks in advance.

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Any help is appreciated on this topic.

 

After loading my photo collection to a share I noticed really long waits to load the directory on my Mac. I mean really long, like minutes. I figured it was because I was using SMB to access the drive on a Mac, so I added AFP. No change. Access from a PC is almost instant, it's really snappy. The problem seems to be only when accessing folders with a large numbers of files on a Mac, but since the primary use of this server is photo storage it makes it kinda unusable. Ugh.

 

I hope someone might point me to a solution. Thanks in advance.

Try installing dynamix cache dirs plugin

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How many files per folder are you talking about? Hundreds? Thousands? More? What Finder settings do you have - are you expecting it to display thumbnails, for example?

 

Which version of OS X? Earlier than Mavericks AFP is probably your best best; later and SMB might be better.

 

Have you tried NFS?

 

When using AFP did you wait for the Finder window to populate? Did you find that subsequent attempts at opening the same folders were quicker? Once the .AppleDB database has been built it should be quicker.

 

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Thanks John_M

 

Good questions, I should of included them in my original question...

 

A few thousand files are in a folder typically. All Photos.

 

I'm just trying to get a file list, not build a thumbnail icon view. Although I think the thumbnail view shows up just as quickly( aka slowly), but I gave up on that and I am not just trying to get file lists now.

 

I'm running El Captian, latest updates.

 

I did try NFS. At least I enabled it. No difference. I'd really like to use AFP of course as using that protocol allows the Mac to auto mount the share when needed.

 

I would wait sometimes 5 to 10 minutes for the finder window to populate. The subsequent directory view was faster, maybe a minute or two. When I switched to thumbnails I could watch the thumbnails slowly populate. Something that is almost instant on the PC.

 

I really want to use the server for photo storage and browsing. So thumbnails are really needed. So is a fast refresh.  Id say it was network or server hardware related but it works awesome on the PC.

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In my experience unRAID performance on OS X is one of the few weak links with the product. I don't know where the problem is but I frequently experience dropped shares (only a Mac reboot will reconnect) and long, long directory loading times. Neither of these things occur when using Windows machines. Using AFP changed nothing nor does the cache dir plugin improve things. In the seven years I've been using unRAID it's always been this way with no real noticeable changes.

 

I just live with it but it can get frustrating at times.

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With El Capitan and later you will probably find that SMB3 is the preferred protocol once Samba supports it properly. Hopefully that will be the case by the time unRAID 6.2 comes out of beta testing. Windows 10 users are in a similar position and are having to force the use of the older SMB protocols. I use Mountain Lion with AFP and Windows 7 with SMB and I don't have any problems opening Finder windows, though I don't generally have thousands of files in any given folder, preferring to sort them into more manageable numbers.

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John_M,

 

I agree. I'm sure you are right.

 

I'm not afraid of tinkering it to make it work well. But I suspect that's not the case here. I'm certainly not downgrading my OS's to get things to work well. Ugh.

 

In the meanwhile I'll look elsewhere I guess. FreeNAS maybe. I wrongly assumed a paid product would be superior. I know this stuff is complicated, but I'm not too excited about becoming an expert on SMB and AFP protocols. I'd gladly pay twice as much to know it will just work.

 

FYI. All I'm doing is backing up phone photos. Sure I could divide and conquer, but it all works so well on my Windows 10 PC. It's just the Mac that doesn't work. And AFP is really needed if I want to use the drives to work off of. Otherwise the OS will not automatically mount them and I have to manually mount after each reboot.

 

I want to thank everyone for their help. 

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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In the meanwhile I'll look elsewhere I guess. FreeNAS maybe. I wrongly assumed a paid product would be superior. I know this stuff is complicated, but I'm not too excited about becoming an expert on SMB and AFP protocols. I'd gladly pay twice as much to know it will just work.

 

If you find something that works, I hope you let us know what it is. Maybe we can figure out the difference and what makes it work then for future users.

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This has been a long time issue for me. When i first installed unraid, 5-6yrs ago, I remember not having this issue, but at some point one of the updates to either unraid, or apple brought about this problem. I usually use my server for storing movies & vack-up's and dont reaally need to access it constantly, so a few slow directory load's are a huge issue. I do find it is a little quicker 30sec-1min on a wired connection, so I typically use my Mac mini for transfers rather than my MBP.

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Same issue here.. But I find if the server is on and connected for a period of time loading is much faster. Also only having shares exported in one format helps. Load time is the worst when the server is just connected to. Back in the days when we had to hack AFP into version 4.xx it did seem faster but it was a pain to do. Seems to make no difference if I connect from Mac OS 10.6 or 10.8.

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I want to thank everybody again for all the help and advice.

 

After reading what everyone has said. I'm going to keep the UnRAID server box running Plex and Sync. It does that really well. But it can't be a true file server for me if it treats Macs as second class citizens. I'll check in with each new build to see if things change.

 

To solve my current problem.....I am thinking of:

 

1. Buying some low cost hardware and building a Hackintosh from the infamous tonymacx86 site and installing OS X Server on it. If I'm going to tinker then I might as well get a good Mac server out of it. The hardware would cost another $300 or so. The software is like $20.

 

2: Trying out FreeNAS. You can't beat the price as they say.

 

3. Just bite the bullet and get a prebuilt NAS from Amazon. Performance might not be great, but it has to beat the 5 minute directory load times I'm seeing now with UnRAID.

 

I'll post back here once I get a solution.

 

 

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I want to thank everybody again for all the help and advice.

 

After reading what everyone has said. I'm going to keep the UnRAID server box running Plex and Sync. It does that really well. But it can't be a true file server for me if it treats Macs as second class citizens. I'll check in with each new build to see if things change.

 

To solve my current problem.....I am thinking of:

 

1. Buying some low cost hardware and building a Hackintosh from the infamous tonymacx86 site and installing OS X Server on it. If I'm going to tinker then I might as well get a good Mac server out of it. The hardware would cost another $300 or so. The software is like $20.

 

2: Trying out FreeNAS. You can't beat the price as they say.

 

3. Just bite the bullet and get a prebuilt NAS from Amazon. Performance might not be great, but it has to beat the 5 minute directory load times I'm seeing now with UnRAID.

 

I'll post back here once I get a solution.

 

Try option 2 before option 3 if it comes to that. If FreeNAS has the same problem as you experience on unRAID, it is highly unlikely that a prebuilt NAS would fare any better...

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I want to thank everybody again for all the help and advice.

 

After reading what everyone has said. I'm going to keep the UnRAID server box running Plex and Sync. It does that really well. But it can't be a true file server for me if it treats Macs as second class citizens. I'll check in with each new build to see if things change.

 

To solve my current problem.....I am thinking of:

 

1. Buying some low cost hardware and building a Hackintosh from the infamous tonymacx86 site and installing OS X Server on it. If I'm going to tinker then I might as well get a good Mac server out of it. The hardware would cost another $300 or so. The software is like $20.

 

2: Trying out FreeNAS. You can't beat the price as they say.

 

3. Just bite the bullet and get a prebuilt NAS from Amazon. Performance might not be great, but it has to beat the 5 minute directory load times I'm seeing now with UnRAID.

 

I'll post back here once I get a solution.

 

Try option 2 before option 3 if it comes to that. If FreeNAS has the same problem as you experience on unRAID, it is highly unlikely that a prebuilt NAS would fare any better...

 

I've used the Synology DS2415+ and DS1815+ very effectively with Macintoshes for broadcast quality editing in my professional life. They are surprisingly good.

 

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I want to thank everybody again for all the help and advice.

 

After reading what everyone has said. I'm going to keep the UnRAID server box running Plex and Sync. It does that really well. But it can't be a true file server for me if it treats Macs as second class citizens. I'll check in with each new build to see if things change.

 

To solve my current problem.....I am thinking of:

 

1. Buying some low cost hardware and building a Hackintosh from the infamous tonymacx86 site and installing OS X Server on it. If I'm going to tinker then I might as well get a good Mac server out of it. The hardware would cost another $300 or so. The software is like $20.

 

2: Trying out FreeNAS. You can't beat the price as they say.

 

3. Just bite the bullet and get a prebuilt NAS from Amazon. Performance might not be great, but it has to beat the 5 minute directory load times I'm seeing now with UnRAID.

 

I'll post back here once I get a solution.

 

Try option 2 before option 3 if it comes to that. If FreeNAS has the same problem as you experience on unRAID, it is highly unlikely that a prebuilt NAS would fare any better...

 

I run in a completely OSX environment and I have experienced issues that the OP has outlined on both FreeNAS, unRAID AND my little coal driven Netgear ReadyNAS NV+.

 

I have learned to live with it. I hope that the implementation of SMB3 and the release of unRAID 6.2 stable will fix these issues. I have not read anything from a BETA user running OSX say if the current unRAID version makes things better or not.

 

TBH I have lived with them so long that I sort of think of it as a "penalty" of using OSX with SMB. I have got into the habit of having more granularity in my directory structures which somewhat mitigates the issue and just deal with the fact that every now and then I have to restart Finder when the share mounting gets messed up.

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Try option 2 before option 3 if it comes to that. If FreeNAS has the same problem as you experience on unRAID, it is highly unlikely that a prebuilt NAS would fare any better...

 

I've used the Synology DS2415+ and DS1815+ very effectively with Macintoshes for broadcast quality editing in my professional life. They are surprisingly good.

 

I wasn't bashing prebuilt NAS units, I was saying that I find it unlikely that they handle a particular situation both unRAID and FreeNAS failed to handle. All prebuilt NAS units I'm aware of use the same open source components as everyone else for the relevant parts...

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Gubbgnutten

 

I think you might be happily surprised about the performance of store bought NAS. I have an old WD myCloud that I use to currently backup my photos. It's pokey slow, no doubt, but it works. Directories take a few seconds to load but nowhere near the 5 minute Mac load times of my unRAID server. I'm sure a Synology like the ones John_M recommended would work just fine. I was hoping to save a few bucks and have more control over the hardware though, so I investigated unRAID. Maybe even be able to work directly off of it instead of a local drive. I think we all agree tinkering with this stuff is fun, but at some point you have to actually get work done.

 

In the end, a server has to be consistent and dependable. I would most certainly trade off a few MB's of read and write speeds for a consistent experience no matter what the client I use.

 

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I have both freenas at work & unraid at home, my Mac's have the same issue on both, so i dont believe it is an unraid/freenas issue, its a mac issue. Back in the very beginning directories seemed to load fine, I am not sure if it was the version of OSX, or the number of files i had in the directories. but at some point whether an upgrade to the OSX or whatver, it just started slowing down!!

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