[Xyrrus]

A while back there were a few threads about heavy drive use beachballing Mac Pros. I had expierenced some of these problems (while installing apple loops, for instance the entire machine would beachball). After a few firmware updates I figured the problems were solved and/or in my head.

So last night I'm using Aperture and importing ~50 files off a CF card via a USB reader. I generally set an import and walk away, but my gf wanted a single picture off the card and so I tried to export it as soon as it appeared in the library. The entire machine basically ground to a halt. I hit cmd-tab to see if it was just aperture and the cmd-tab application listing literally was frozen on my screen for 30 seconds, half faded in. This does not jive with my idea of how an SMP aware OS should run on a quad core box.

Here's the setup: Mac Pro 2.66, X1900 video. 4x512 ram. Bays 1-4 are all 7200RPM 250 gig drivers. 1-3 are seagate 7200.10s, 4 is an apple supplied WD. 1,2 and 3,4 are both raid0. Two logical 500G drives. Set A is OS and user folder, Set B is backup and scratch drives. 100G free on both sets. Camera is a canon 20D, USB 2.0 reader and a 133x lexar 4g card. Everything is patched current.

So I'm looking for advice:
1) Does anyone else use aperture here that finds its speed unacceptable on this type of machine?
2) Does anyone remember drive issues that were/were not resolved? There are some threads left hanging on macnn, but I wasn't able to locate any of the threads on apple's forum.
3) How should I go about testing this? De-RAID the drives and test, try different drives, etc, etc. Should I just reformat and build my install from ground zero?
4) I know there are some issues with the seagate drives - could that be a problem source?

I know this is sort of an ill-defined problem, but any pointers towards similiar problems/solutions would be greatly appreciated.

-Xy

[Waragainstsleep]

I would check the drives with Disk Utility, Diskwarrior and Techtool if you have them. Also check your system log from console to see if anything seems amiss.
You might run the hardware test too. Should be bootable from your system disc using the d key at startup.

[Naaaaak]

I've noticed OS X seems to suck with disk access in general. Like you I have a MacPro and I am able to slow UI operations significantly when large file copies or large file operations of any sort are taking place.

[herbsman]

same thing happens with my mac pro! it's irritating because power macs never did this. i love my machine, but it's basically worthless when i'm copying gigs worth of data at any given time. mine also beach-balls and crawls just like yours. looks like there are many mac pro owners in the same boat.

[imitchellg5]

Funny how my 533 MHz Power Mac can handle some stuff that a Mac Pro can't. They don't make them like they used to.

[herbsman]

Originally Posted by imitchellg5 

Funny how my 533 MHz Power Mac can handle some stuff that a Mac Pro can't. They don't make them like they used to.

i don't understand this! i am here at an apple store and the demo mac pro also does the same thing! any ideas as to what causes this problem? i'm now assuming that this is normal for ALL mac pros!

[Big Mac]

It sounds like an SATA controller problem. Sux.

[darcybaston]

I've noticed the same on demo Mac Pros at my local Apple store. Do a big file copy, and bam...performance tanks. On my dual core G5 at home, file operations multitask beautifully.

[brokenjago]

i don't understand this! i am here at an apple store and the demo mac pro also does the same thing! any ideas as to what causes this problem? i'm now assuming that this is normal for ALL mac pros!

From what I've heard, this is not normal behavior, and can supposedly be traced to a problem with the drive bay 1 sata port.

Contact apple and see what they say.

I know I've done 300GB+ transfers to and from my internal to my external with no noticeable performance penalty.

[dankar]

Same problem, try running a 400mb photoshop file and it seems to get slower with time. WIth my configuration, 3ghz x2, 4gb ram, X1900XT. Should not be a problem, have ProTech tool my set and problem still persist. Hope OS 10.5 helps.

[herbsman]

Originally Posted by brokenjago 

From what I've heard, this is not normal behavior, and can supposedly be traced to a problem with the drive bay 1 sata port.

Contact apple and see what they say.

I know I've done 300GB+ transfers to and from my internal to my external with no noticeable performance penalty.

i pulled my main HD from bay 1 and swapped it with bay 3. same slow startups, same slow to a crawl during heavy disk access! bummer

[darcybaston]

Originally Posted by brokenjago 

I know I've done 300GB+ transfers to and from my internal to my external with no noticeable performance penalty.

Duplicate that much content on the same internal drive, and watch what happens. I know this is intensive and should naturally slow things down, but the near-halt in multitasking on a MacPro vs. just a change of speed on a G5, is very different.

[herbsman]

i'm really missing my dual 2.5 G5, it multi tasked apps like a dream during heavy disk use, can't say the same for my mac pro. is this an issue that more and more mac pro owners are complaining about? there is no official acknowledgment by apple, i called tech support and the guy didn't know what was causing the problems nor did he admit that it was affecting a lot of mac pro users.

[Rolling Musubi]

I just tried this now with 4 simultaneous copies duplicating content (a variety of small and large files in several folders) to the same drive and didn't encounter any performance hit with regards to multitasking. The UI felt responsive as always and I could switch apps and do Finder related tasks w/o problems.

This is a 2.66GHz model with 5GB memory. Bay 1 - stock Western Digital WD2500JS, Bay 2 and 3 - Western Digital WD3200KS, Bay 4 - Western Digital WD5000YS