El Capitan Users: Fix Slow Response Drives

[Robert Lane]

(Moderator: Didn't want to put this in FCP forums since it OS-related, not specific to an NLE package)

If you're on any version of El Capitan and finding that mounting/ejecting an external drive (other than optical media) is happening very slowly or even hangs indefinitely here's a quick built-in solution that might help (assuming you don't have any deep OS-related issues):

In previous OS's Disk Utility was really nothing more than a surface-level tool for fixing drive-file related issues. While that's still mostly true, Apple did give DU a bit more authority in addressing core drive identification, "Am I a healthy drive?" type of communication.

When I looked at the console during a "First Aid" operation I noticed DU is actually going much deeper than in previous OSX iterations and actually fixing boot-level ID partitions (often referred to as the "hot zone" in UNIX) which it never did before.

The end result is that the drive, whether it's a traditional HDD or a newer SSD gets it's boot ID refreshed and old info tossed out, almost like tossing .plist files for an app when it gets wonky. And in doing so OSX doesn't have to contend with what might be confusing boot-level info from a drive that's been connected multiple times.

And after running First Aid those same volumes/drives mount and eject with the snappiness they did when fresh! Cool.

Previously the only way to fix that kind of issue was to run DiskWarrior, which is NOT a native OSX app and isn't cheap (although I *always* recommend ANY Mac OSX user have it in their toolbelt for system maintenance). But now El Capitan does it for you in the "First Aid" tool, built into Disk Utility.

You should still own a copy of DiskWarrior for other issues only it can fix, but if all you've got is a drive that doesn't respond to being mounted or ejected as quickly as it should, this will get you fixed up.

[Eugen Brinzoiu]

Great
Thanks for sharing.