Mac running really slow

Gordon Loop
Gordon Loop Member Posts: 8 ✭✭
edited November 2024 in English Forum

Hi,

I am new to the forum. I have had Logos 4 on my Mac laptop since 2010 or so. I started off with Logos Silver, than upgraded to Logos 5 Platinum a few years ago. I pretty much purchase books every month to add to my library. For the last few months I have been struggling with the way my Logos is working. It is really slow, and I get the colorful spinning wheel way too often. Below is my system, which I know is old, but at this point I cannot afford to buy new. My memory is maxed out at 4. My hard drive is 160 Gb data disk, with 23 gb free space, so things are tight. 
Is it possible to run Logos off of a external hard drive to alleviate the strain on my Mac? Will it operate this way? 

2 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo

4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3

Thanks,

Gordon Loop

Comments

  • Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)
    Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :) MVP Posts: 23,165

    Primary recommendation is replacing 160 GB disk drive with a larger SATA III Solid State Disk (SSD), which would noticeably improve laptop responsiveness.  Personally look for SSD with over 500 MB/sec read and write speeds.

    Other World Computing has SSD upgrade guide => http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/SSD/OWC

    I Fix It has Mac Laptop repair guides => https://www.ifixit.com/Device/Mac_Laptop

    Newegg has 240 GB SSD for $ 87.99 + $0.99 shipping => http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226679

    Gordon Loop said:Is it possible to run Logos off of a external hard drive to alleviate the strain on my Mac? Will it operate this way? 

    Yes, wiki has => https://wiki.logos.com/Install_in_different_folder_or_drive#OS_X

    Caveat: thread => Install on SSD has informative discussion; renaming external drive or not having drive attached will cause Logos to not work.

    Keep Smiling [:)]

  • Gordon Loop
    Gordon Loop Member Posts: 8 ✭✭
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/712595#Comment_712595

    Thanks for your response. I had another quick question for clarification. First let me set it up. My understanding is that my storage memory does not affect operating as much as Ram memory. Is this true?

    The reason I ask is a Apple personal told me that my HD is not causing the problem but my Ram memory is. I have no problem getting a new hard drive but I want to make sure. What do you think?

    A couple of more"

    Can this be a Logos 5 problem coming from Logos so I am forced to update to Logos 6?

    The link I found on Logos for system requirements is 2GB memory, is this correct? Is there another link somewhere?

    Thanks , and I am still smiling.

    Gordon

  • Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :)
    Keep Smiling 4 Jesus :) MVP Posts: 23,165
    https://community.logos.com/discussion/comment/715288#Comment_715288

    Gordon Loop said:

    My understanding is that my storage memory does not affect operating as much as Ram memory. Is this true?

    Maybe; OS X has Activity Monitor that can show memory usage => https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201464 and => https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201538 

    When lots of Swap is being used, then RAM pages are being written and read from storage, which contends with other processes accessing storage, which has similar effect as automobiles in rush hour traffic with brake lights on.

    My iMac with 16 GB of RAM has 0 bytes of Swap Used so upgrading RAM would not be noticeable.  In contrast on an older Mac with many GB's of Swap Used, upgrading RAM was noticeable. Wiki has => https://wiki.logos.com/Mac_Troubleshooting#Slow_Performance with many performance tips.

    Gordon Loop said:

    I have no problem getting a new hard drive but I want to make sure. What do you think?

    Logos is a resource intensive application that can have many GB's used on storage; upgrading hard disk to Sata III Solid State Disk (SSD) with over 500 MB/sec for write speed is noticeably faster.  Upgrading a 5400 RPM disk to 7200 RPM disk can improve storage transfer speeds up to 30%, which is humanly noticeable.  SSD speed improvement is much faster.

    Gordon Loop said:

    Can this be a Logos 5 problem coming from Logos so I am forced to update to Logos 6?

    Last stable Logos 5 release: 5.2b SR-9 is a 32 bit application, which had effective maximum RAM usage of 1.5 GB.  In contrast, Logos 6 is a 64 bit application that can use more RAM.

    Keep Smiling [:)]

  • John Goodman
    John Goodman Member Posts: 1,746 ✭✭✭

    Hi,

    My mum has the same laptop as you and her Logos library is Anglican bronze plus several other commentary sets and reference sets. It was performing slowly and I put a Crucial mx100 250gb SSD in. Both she and I feel that it performs at a suitable speed now. In fact, it was so much faster than my i7 with 16gb of Ram that I went out and bought my own SSD. I chose a Samsung evo850 500gb which I think will work a bit better with Logos because it has faster non-sequential performance.

    When I use activity monitor on my machine I can see that there isn't really any bottleneck for Logos now except the web access which here is 76mb. I think you will basically get similar performance from your laptop as a new machine if you put the SSD in.

    Hope that helps,

    John

    גַּם־חֹשֶׁךְ֮ לֹֽא־יַחְשִׁ֪יךְ מִ֫מֶּ֥ךָ וְ֭לַיְלָה כַּיּ֣וֹם יָאִ֑יר כַּ֝חֲשֵׁיכָ֗ה כָּאוֹרָֽה

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