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You are here: MacNN Forums > Hardware - Troubleshooting and Discussion > Mac Desktops > Home made fusion drive

Home made fusion drive
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Harvey
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May 23, 2017, 11:34 AM
 
About a year ago I added an ssd to my 2T HD and with the help of some online help converted to a fusion drive. Noticed a speed bump whiched was very helpful in LR. But now I am getting symptoms that are very slow in every operation with a beachball that seems to hang around forever. Storage is still adequate with 400 GB available. Anyone have any ideas. Is it an overheating issue.
     
Harvey  (op)
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May 26, 2017, 11:34 AM
 
In my attempt to discover why my iMac has slowed down so much I began using the activity monitor to help me find a solution. So far I have found that a program (or an APP) shows up and hogs as much as 80% of my CPU. It is called INSTALLER and if I x it out (a temporary delete method I believe) it seems to NOT slow down my processor. Would love to know if anyone has any thoughts on this process and also if I can safely delete this program???
     
OreoCookie
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May 31, 2017, 10:19 PM
 
How big is the SSD that you have put in? Besides, your drive is 80 % full, it is not unusual that you see slowdowns, because now data has to be saved on the slowest part of the disk. If your SSD is quite small, say, 128 GB, then it might be too small to effectively cache enough data.

These days, I would recommend you look into getting a big SSD.
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reader50
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Jun 1, 2017, 12:22 AM
 
Is TRIM enabled on your SSD? If not, after a year of steady use, your SSD can become slow.

Assuming you are using Yosemite or later, you can fix this by opening Terminal. Then type: sudo trimforce
Chameleon works for 10.6 - 10.10.

ps - from the thread title, I was so hoping this was about a homemade fusion-powered rocket drive. With pictures. We need more space drives.
     
Harvey  (op)
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Jun 3, 2017, 05:22 PM
 
Thanks to Oreo and Reader for your helpful responses. After using Activity monitor for about 2 weeks I decided to download "Malwarebytes3" (not something I would ever do since my MacKeeper experience of 5 yrs ago) and it seems to be helping. By the way I have a 1TB HD and a 250 GB SSD combined to form the Fusion Dr. As for Trimming . . . . my About This Mac info tells me that I have a Trimmed Drive but I will try your Terminal code this evening.

Thanks again,
Harvey
Dracut, MA
     
OreoCookie
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Jun 4, 2017, 09:59 PM
 
I thought you had a 2 TB hard disk?!?

By the way, I sincerely doubt the software you downloaded is doing anything useful, to be honest, I wouldn't let it near my machine with a ten-foot pole.

The slow down you describe sounds just as if your drive is too full: if you have a 250 GB SSD and a 2 TB hard drive with a combined capacity of 2.25 TB and 400 GB of free space. That means that you are in the slowest part of the hard drive (the inner sectors closest to the center of the spindle) and data needs to be constantly shoved back and forth between the SSD and the hard drive.

Don't install any “malware protection software” or some such, just get a bigger hard drive or SSD.
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it.
     
Doc HM
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Jun 13, 2017, 03:59 AM
 
Funnily enough in a world full of rubbish apps that actually do your Mac harm (MacKeeper) I have found Malwarebytes, which specialises in Adware removal to be a useful and effective tool. It really only does the one thing and it seems to do it pretty well.

It doesn't hang around on the system like MacKeep et al either.

If Adware was your problem though I would imagine you would have noticed the ads and redirects all over your search and browsing, so I assume your slowdowns are more disk related.

400GB of free space really shouldn't impact your mac speed THAT much. Not with a modern faster HDD as part of your fusion setup. There seems to be some confusion over your HDD size. If it is 1TB it's likely to be the original drive installed with the Mac and if it's one of the problematical Seagate drives this may well be your issue.
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