31 ms·

macOS Finder is still bad at network file copies

98 points by kencausey 2y ago

rany_ 2y ago
Isn't this because Windows uses a kernel driver and macOS a user space one? Some overhead is to be expected. I know macOS is a lot more keen on putting things traditionally in kernel into the user space to decrease the attack surface.
codevark 2y ago
[dead]
walterbell 2y ago
What percentage of Macbook profit margins accrue from overpriced flash storage? While other components of a Macbook benefit from Apple's well-earned brand premium, Apple internal storage prices bear little relationship to flash memory cost or retail prices for NVME SSDs. Would macOS/iOS network file transfer (e.g. automated sync/backup/restore) be more reliable or better supported, if Apple had a revenue model for network (LAN/VPN, not public cloud) storage? Could Mac Mini with 10GbE networking be a reliable file server with an external Thunderbolt disk array?
- FourOnTheFloor 2y ago
  [dead]
- crooked-v 2y ago
  > if Apple had a revenue model for network storage Well, they did, once upon a time. I still don't understand why they killed the AirPort and Time Capsule range right as they were trying to expand HomeKit.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    My pet theory: Because they wouldn't have any excuse for not allowing network backups of iOS devices to them, driving people into overpriced iCloud storage plans.
- VHRanger 2y ago
  > What percentage of Macbook profit margins accrue from overpriced flash storage? They want to sell iCloud subscriptions, because it's the recurring revenue for them. I'm still somewhat amazed photo/video/audio creatives, who deal with large files all the time, have to deal with apple's bullshit around storage. Most of creatives I've worked with end up with file storage solutions like messy solutions like "stack of external drives".
  - gyomu 2y ago
    I'm a photographer dealing with many terabytes of files (numbers go up fast when you're shooting 100 megapixel RAWs). As far as I'm concerned, having a stack of redundant external drives is a feature, not a bug. I can easily plug them to a collaborator's computer when network is slow (which is almost always). If one fails, no big deal, I can just swap it out with another one bought at a local store. We're really spoiled, SSDs are tiny and super fast and relatively cheap these days. I remember lugging around 3.5" drives... I always get a laptop with the minimal amount of storage, the money you'd spend upgrading is better spent on drives. That way if it fails, I can buy a new machine, plug in my existing drives, and I'm ready to resume my workflow in 30 minutes. No single point of failure. Same with SD cards, much better to have a bunch of 64 GB than one single expensive 512GB. (of course, I have a nice beefy storage array at my home studio) Now if software would catch up...
    - jwells89 2y ago
      Yeah on premises drives are where it’s at for anything data intensive. I don’t regularly handle the volumes of data you do, but have on occasion and based on past experience I wouldn’t use cloud storage for anything remotely heavy duty, regardless of the desktop platforms and cloud services involved. Too much room for things to go awry when I can’t physically plug the storage in. I’ll use cloud storage for off-premises backup in addition to local backups, but that’s about it.
    - lxgr 2y ago
      But how are you backing up your external drives? I think Time Machine supports it, but you'd need one single drive large enough to store the content of all external drives you use.
VHRanger 2y ago
MacOS in generally is very buggy around SMB in my experience. Windows and Linux don't have these issues. Only android file apps in my experience are as buggy around SMB shares. My macbook often disconnects randomly from my SMB fileserver. I ran into a bug just yesterday where the laptop client would reject re-authentification to the server after I manually disconnected from the SMB server. The only fix was to restart the macbook.
- mistrial9 2y ago
  you are caught in a crossfire, basically, between two huge companies and their networking.
- skullone 2y ago
  It's not just SMB. it's nfs and iscsi too. Awful performance or downright completely buggy and broken. Iscsi requires third party software and you can enjoy the year 2006 in terms of performance. It's truly pathetic.
- derefr 2y ago
  FYI, macOS Finder SMB perf is just fine as long as you connect to the SMB share by its IP address (i.e. by typing “smb://10.0.1.1” in the Cmd+K dialog.) It’s only when you connect to an SMB share by name (incl. by browsing to the share in the Network view) that things get hinky.
  - bravetraveler 2y ago
    It considers '/etc/hosts' when resolving names, right? I wonder if putting the name/IP in there makes it closer to equal - primitive cache
  - VHRanger 2y ago
    Wtf! I've never known that! Of course I have anyone connecting to SMB://fileserver to make it convenient and stable across router reboots. I didn't expect naming it to be an issue.
    - 2y ago
coconut08 2y ago
macos finder is still bad at everything. it organizes the icon view without grid support so things will be spaced weird and go off the screen. it doesn't tell you how fast files are transferring. shift click to select a series of files doesn't work in icon mode. enter doesn't open the folder. there is only a back button and not a go up directory button and these are just the things i could immediately remember with 10 seconds of thought.
- VHRanger 2y ago
  You forgot the lovely thing that is .DS_Store, which ends up everywhere your machine visits on the network.
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    Apple has a silly default enabled that causes that issue—the best thing is to disable it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102064 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102064
    - wetpaws 2y ago
      [dead]
    - talldayo 2y ago
      Silly defaults are why I got rid of my Macbook. I just can't tread the water. Put on your headphones... Apple Music launches. Save files to a certain directory, and it's a tacit request to put it in iCloud. Mouse acceleration is default, disabling it is as easy as a terminal command though (or a third-party tweaking tool). Safari will send nag notifications, but only if you don't disable it. Leaving iCloud alone will add a bright red (1) balloon to your Settings app for no reason; probably for the best. Disable Crash Reporter, disable telemetry, disable the program terminator, disable the sleep image, disable OCSP and Gatekeeper... on top of all that, I still disable automatic updates since Apple cannot be trusted to maintain basic functionality between minor updates. In all my time on MacOS, the only piece of compelling software I found was iTerm2. Which is a shame, since I don't use MacOS for terminal stuff besides SSH anyways.
analog31 2y ago
It took me a long time to put my finger on why I like MS Windows. I've used multiple platforms, but rarely interact with the OS. Most of my time is spent inside apps, and even while coding, I'm using languages and tools that are fairly platform-agnostic. And the UI qualities of the platforms are increasingly overridden by the seemingly random UI designs of apps. Then it recently dawned on me: The file explorer. It's the one OS app that I use regularly, and it "just works" with a good enough layout and robust file operations.
- Solvency 2y ago
  explorer is the exact reason I used Windows exclusively for decades. that, and having the Address input bar in the taskbar so i could rapidly type out and access folders. then Windows 11 decided to remove that feature for absolutely zero reason.
  - Xaiph_Rahci 2y ago
    > absolutely zero reason A prevailing theory is that advanced users opt out of telemetry, where as regular users don't. So Microsoft has no idea what advanced users use and the OS gradually becomes less sophisticated.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      I guess similar issue with Safari not showing the url path by default, which is completely ridiculous. It is a large part of the UX. It is not going to be of benefit to anyone.
      - blacksmith_tb 2y ago
        Chrome also hides things in the url that might confuse us helpless users[1], I think they made that terrible UI change before Safari followed them off the cliff. Another reason to use FF. 1: https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/25855505/how-to-make-chrome-display-full-url?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/25855505/how-to-mak...
exogen 2y ago
I don't find reads to be very fast either. I have a lot of photos on my network drive, and opening or previewing them feels like I'm on dial-up or worse. On Windows, scrolling the folder in thumbnail mode renders them pretty smoothly on-demand, while macOS takes ages. Even just trying to open a single JPG from the network often takes 5-10 seconds. I can't even imagine why. I noticed that if I split up the folder into smaller batches and browse those subfolders instead, it's better. A few months ago I also painstakingly went through and added tags and comments to many of these files. Later, when the network drive was remounted, the comments were all wiped out while the tags remained (presumably, because of the different attribute storage mechanisms the different fields use, combined with the changing mount ID). Maybe that's recoverable somehow, but I simply don't have the patience. To me, it's as good as lost. Thanks, macOS!
a_wild_dandan 2y ago
How was his basic first step not immediately swapping out the Mac? Sparing "many hours of debugging" reads like he'd just prefer a solution over the practice/insight. But maybe I'm misreading him.
freitzkriesler2 2y ago
Can we also talk about the green button is "full screen" and not a maximized window? I had an app that adds windows tiling that also added this feature and it made osx a breeze to use. Better touch type or something like that. I went back to windows because I couldn't give up my magsafe and HDMI port. Go figure immediately after I bought a Razer blade apple understood their error and brought back the magsafe and HDMI ports.
- derefr 2y ago
  The green button is still “maximize” if you hold Cmd while clicking it; and you can switch which one is the default behavior in Settings.
  - reaperducer 2y ago
    The green button is still “maximize” if you hold Cmd while clicking it; and you can switch which one is the default behavior in Settings. Half of the macOS complaints on HN are always PEBKAC from people who won't RTFM.
    - mewpmewp2 2y ago
      These things constantly change and who has time for all of that? Windows to me is intuitive by default, I can't find macOS intuitive after 10 years even when being forced to work with it professionally. I still can't deal with copy paste ctrl/cmd btn being in an awkward position and if I change it in the settings other problems ensue. My muscle memory is all kinds of done.
      - tpmoney 2y ago
        >These things constantly change and who has time for all of that? While Apple does change some things with some regularity, the change from "Zoom Window" to "Full Screen" for the green button (and it's alternate behavior when holding option) has been in place since 10.7, 13 years ago. The ability to double click a window titlebar to get the same effect has been in place since the classic mac OS days. I imagine most people have time within a 13 year period to type "Maximize" into the Help search and read the "Move and arrange app windows" topic, and specifically the "Maximize or minimize app windows" section therein.
tdsanchez 2y ago
I mostly use Carbon Copy Cloner, PathFinder, ditto and rsync because if I try to copy anything more than a few files it's like I'm running MacOS 9 and I have to babysit the copy like it's a five year old riding a bike with training wheels. It's pretty clear whomever is leading MacOS dev efforts has been given the directive to not commit any new resources to the MacOS Finder. For organizing files, I use File Browser Pro (iOS/Apple Silicon), Leap, DevonTHINK and anything else except the finder and tags which have never really worked very well. There are bugs in the Finder and Disk Utility that have persisted for multiple OS releases and I simply don't trust GUI file management tools in modern MacOS. In my view, Apple has decided to kill the Mac as a tool and wants everyone to use their Apple devices as consoles except devs who have to put up with being treated as second class citizens while Apple simultaneously uses the same lot of folks to do QA during "public betas". As an Apple follower for decades, I'm running away from the platform and have recently replaced iCloud (for all intents and purposes) with Syncthing. I use old Intel Macs as daily drivers because you can't really multitask effectively with Apple Silicon -and- work with files because, well, memory contention is still a problem with iGPUs just like it always has been. The speed-up of the much vaunted Apple Silicon has EVERYTHING to do with the physical proximity of the processor cores to the DRAM except when you have a lot of process running then the kernel panics because memory contention issues with storage since MOST storage has to be on the USB bus and you can get into situations where the Mac can't keep the files system consistent because APFS, snapshots and Time Machine are a fuxxing disaster... sorry folks. /venting. I think Jeff should try ssfs with disk images on either end to get closer to 125 MB/s.
- derefr 2y ago
  > It's pretty clear whomever is leading MacOS dev efforts has been given the directive to not commit any new resources to the MacOS Finder. Funny to say, because I just noticed the other day that as of the latest macOS version, Finder directory copies now have some kind of progress metadata (as an xattr of the top level copied folder?) that allows you to cancel [or presumably fail due to network loss] and then later resume copies.
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
desro 2y ago
I've got a beefy synology nas and a variety of macs and have always had issues with smb shares, despite applying the configuration tweaks even apple recommends on their support site. i get full gigabit-speed as expected when using nfs, though, so i stick with that.
- crazygringo 2y ago
  Can you share the Apple-recommended tweaks? I'm trying to google it and not finding anything.
  - desro 2y ago
    There are a few, but these links should get you started and hint at future keywords for search. The first link is the one I was thinking of, but there are more. YMMV with link 3 (samba wiki). 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102010 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102010 2. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102050 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102050 3. https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configure_Samba_to_Work_Better_with_Mac_OS_X https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configure_Samba_to_Work_Bet...
- radicality 2y ago
  Huh, interesting, I also have a decent synology (ds1621xs+), and feel like I haven't experienced too many issues with it. Time Machine over smb is wonky, but time machine overall is just wonky. And another one, working with / copying many small files is always pretty bad, but I mostly use it for larger files. I just tried copying a large video file onto the NAS via smb and get around 700MB/s, which is around what I would expect for the setup (5 * 16TB ironwolf pro in raid5, connected via thunderbolt to an sfp+ adapter). Few other things you could try apart from those articles: * `defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool TRUE` to not write the DS files to network locations * Connect via IP address in cmd+K connect window. * _Turn off_ wifi completely when you connect via ethernet. Otherwise it's very likely the connection will still end up going through the wifi interface. * Enable jumbo frames on the interface (mtu 9000). * Check `smbutil statshares -a`. You want SMB 3. If it's a LAN and you don't care about encryption, then `SMB_CURR_ENCRYPT_ALGORITHM` should be `off`.
Cherian 2y ago
Are there good alternatives to Finder like Total Commander for Windows (https://www.ghisler.com/ https://www.ghisler.com/). I still miss it.
- code_biologist 2y ago
  Forklift (https://binarynights.com/ https://binarynights.com/) and Path Finder (https://www.cocoatech.io/ https://www.cocoatech.io/) are the two big ones I think.
  - jwells89 2y ago
    For remote connections Transmit[0] is solid and among the oldest Mac apps still in development. [0]: https://panic.com/transmit/ https://panic.com/transmit/
    - geerlingguy 2y ago
      Transmit has been and so far unless proven otherwise always will be one of the top 5 little apps for the Mac platform. Panic has always made some of the most intuitive/useful utilities, and there are few companies with the consistent hits that they've had.
      - jwells89 2y ago
        I’m a big fan of Panic too. Been using Transmit for a long time.
shantara 2y ago
I had the same experience as the author, and spent a lot of time tinkering with various macOS configuration options trying to make it work reliably and quickly with the network shares from Synology NAS. Something that is effortlessly works on Windows and Linux machines out of box. Eventually, I just gave up. It simply doesn’t seem to be possible. I find it extremely embarrassing for Apple that the fastest way to download and upload the files from the NAS is via its web interface, considering how much more complexity it involves compared to SMB/Samba that were specifically designed for the purpose.
- avidphantasm 2y ago
  ssh/sftp?
  - shantara 2y ago
    Does macOS support mounting SFTP shares?
    - geerlingguy 2y ago
      Transmit (by Panic) used to allow this functionality a while ago. The closest thing that would replicate some of the niceties of a Samba or NFS mount are taken care of by sshfs, but that utility is only maintained sparingly nowadays (and has a bunch of little quirks for use cases besides "copying files to and from the share"). I use Transmit sometimes when I'm just trying to copy folders and files and don't want to whip out scp, but otherwise, I like Samba and NFS, just... they're terrible in Finder.
      - shantara 2y ago
        Thank you. I’ll give it a try
    - AnonC 2y ago
      There are some third party apps that support mounting SFTP or other remote drives/paths so that they’re accessible in Finder and in other apps. Some of these are Transmit (by Panic Software), Forklift by Binary Nights, and Mountain Duck.
bombcar 2y ago
I’ve had minimal issues with SMB against my Gentoo ZFS server, but I may not be using it the way others do. I do have the Time Machine enhancements in Samba enabled.
rado 2y ago
Impossible to open the context menu with keyboard (Shift+F10 on Windows)
icedchai 2y ago
I find folder navigation in Finder so bad, that whenever I need to use it for something (rare), I prefer to "cd" through the terminal then do an "open ."
- xanderlewis 2y ago
  The main bad thing is the lack of an obvious ‘parent’ button for going up the file hierarchy. It only seems to support the idea of going back in time, which is almost never what I want.
  - jimsmart 2y ago
    Right-click the folder name in Finder’s title bar, shows and allows jumping to parent folders.
  - icedchai 2y ago
    You can enable the "Show Path Bar" option (under the "View" menu), which helps, but still not quite what you want. I also find it weird that the path bar is at the bottom of the window.
  - Toutouxc 2y ago
    I agree with you, but just in case you don't know, Cmd + Up goes up the hierarchy, Cmd + Down descends into the highlighted directory. I rarely use the mouse in Finder. List view, arrow keys and these two shortcuts are just faster.
    - adamomada 2y ago
      Yeah keyboard is the way to go. My absolute favourite completely hidden shortcut in Finder is, because all hotkeys are modifier keys, you can quickly type a few unique characters of the dir/file name and it’ll jump right to it
      - xanderlewis 2y ago
        Yes! That’s quite nice. I quite like the fact that you can rename files by hitting enter and just typing. And space toggles a very quick preview that depends on file type. Finder’s not all bad!
nubinetwork 2y ago
Windows explorer is pretty bad at file copies too, especially network file copies.
tibbydudeza 2y ago
Afaik Apple wrote their own implementation of SAMBA (smbx) instead of using the opensource samba client and frankly to be kind it is not performant - dunno why they went this route.
- TheFuzzball 2y ago
  In a word? GPLv3.

98 points by kencausey 2y ago

Isn't this because Windows uses a kernel driver and macOS a user space one? Some overhead is to be expected. I know macOS is a lot more keen on putting things traditionally in kernel into the user space to decrease the attack surface.

codevark 2y ago

[dead]

walterbell 2y ago

What percentage of Macbook profit margins accrue from overpriced flash storage? While other components of a Macbook benefit from Apple's well-earned brand premium, Apple internal storage prices bear little relationship to flash memory cost or retail prices for NVME SSDs. Would macOS/iOS network file transfer (e.g. automated sync/backup/restore) be more reliable or better supported, if Apple had a revenue model for network (LAN/VPN, not public cloud) storage? Could Mac Mini with 10GbE networking be a reliable file server with an external Thunderbolt disk array?

FourOnTheFloor 2y ago
[dead]
crooked-v 2y ago
> if Apple had a revenue model for network storage Well, they did, once upon a time. I still don't understand why they killed the AirPort and Time Capsule range right as they were trying to expand HomeKit.
- lxgr 2y ago
  My pet theory: Because they wouldn't have any excuse for not allowing network backups of iOS devices to them, driving people into overpriced iCloud storage plans.
VHRanger 2y ago
> What percentage of Macbook profit margins accrue from overpriced flash storage? They want to sell iCloud subscriptions, because it's the recurring revenue for them. I'm still somewhat amazed photo/video/audio creatives, who deal with large files all the time, have to deal with apple's bullshit around storage. Most of creatives I've worked with end up with file storage solutions like messy solutions like "stack of external drives".
- gyomu 2y ago
  I'm a photographer dealing with many terabytes of files (numbers go up fast when you're shooting 100 megapixel RAWs). As far as I'm concerned, having a stack of redundant external drives is a feature, not a bug. I can easily plug them to a collaborator's computer when network is slow (which is almost always). If one fails, no big deal, I can just swap it out with another one bought at a local store. We're really spoiled, SSDs are tiny and super fast and relatively cheap these days. I remember lugging around 3.5" drives... I always get a laptop with the minimal amount of storage, the money you'd spend upgrading is better spent on drives. That way if it fails, I can buy a new machine, plug in my existing drives, and I'm ready to resume my workflow in 30 minutes. No single point of failure. Same with SD cards, much better to have a bunch of 64 GB than one single expensive 512GB. (of course, I have a nice beefy storage array at my home studio) Now if software would catch up...
  - jwells89 2y ago
    Yeah on premises drives are where it’s at for anything data intensive. I don’t regularly handle the volumes of data you do, but have on occasion and based on past experience I wouldn’t use cloud storage for anything remotely heavy duty, regardless of the desktop platforms and cloud services involved. Too much room for things to go awry when I can’t physically plug the storage in. I’ll use cloud storage for off-premises backup in addition to local backups, but that’s about it.
  - lxgr 2y ago
    But how are you backing up your external drives? I think Time Machine supports it, but you'd need one single drive large enough to store the content of all external drives you use.

VHRanger 2y ago

MacOS in generally is very buggy around SMB in my experience. Windows and Linux don't have these issues. Only android file apps in my experience are as buggy around SMB shares. My macbook often disconnects randomly from my SMB fileserver. I ran into a bug just yesterday where the laptop client would reject re-authentification to the server after I manually disconnected from the SMB server. The only fix was to restart the macbook.

mistrial9 2y ago
you are caught in a crossfire, basically, between two huge companies and their networking.
skullone 2y ago
It's not just SMB. it's nfs and iscsi too. Awful performance or downright completely buggy and broken. Iscsi requires third party software and you can enjoy the year 2006 in terms of performance. It's truly pathetic.
derefr 2y ago
FYI, macOS Finder SMB perf is just fine as long as you connect to the SMB share by its IP address (i.e. by typing “smb://10.0.1.1” in the Cmd+K dialog.) It’s only when you connect to an SMB share by name (incl. by browsing to the share in the Network view) that things get hinky.
- bravetraveler 2y ago
  It considers '/etc/hosts' when resolving names, right? I wonder if putting the name/IP in there makes it closer to equal - primitive cache
- VHRanger 2y ago
  Wtf! I've never known that! Of course I have anyone connecting to SMB://fileserver to make it convenient and stable across router reboots. I didn't expect naming it to be an issue.
  - 2y ago

coconut08 2y ago

macos finder is still bad at everything. it organizes the icon view without grid support so things will be spaced weird and go off the screen. it doesn't tell you how fast files are transferring. shift click to select a series of files doesn't work in icon mode. enter doesn't open the folder. there is only a back button and not a go up directory button and these are just the things i could immediately remember with 10 seconds of thought.

VHRanger 2y ago
You forgot the lovely thing that is .DS_Store, which ends up everywhere your machine visits on the network.
- geerlingguy 2y ago
  Apple has a silly default enabled that causes that issue—the best thing is to disable it: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102064 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102064
  - wetpaws 2y ago
    [dead]
  - talldayo 2y ago
    Silly defaults are why I got rid of my Macbook. I just can't tread the water. Put on your headphones... Apple Music launches. Save files to a certain directory, and it's a tacit request to put it in iCloud. Mouse acceleration is default, disabling it is as easy as a terminal command though (or a third-party tweaking tool). Safari will send nag notifications, but only if you don't disable it. Leaving iCloud alone will add a bright red (1) balloon to your Settings app for no reason; probably for the best. Disable Crash Reporter, disable telemetry, disable the program terminator, disable the sleep image, disable OCSP and Gatekeeper... on top of all that, I still disable automatic updates since Apple cannot be trusted to maintain basic functionality between minor updates. In all my time on MacOS, the only piece of compelling software I found was iTerm2. Which is a shame, since I don't use MacOS for terminal stuff besides SSH anyways.

analog31 2y ago

It took me a long time to put my finger on why I like MS Windows. I've used multiple platforms, but rarely interact with the OS. Most of my time is spent inside apps, and even while coding, I'm using languages and tools that are fairly platform-agnostic. And the UI qualities of the platforms are increasingly overridden by the seemingly random UI designs of apps. Then it recently dawned on me: The file explorer. It's the one OS app that I use regularly, and it "just works" with a good enough layout and robust file operations.

Solvency 2y ago
explorer is the exact reason I used Windows exclusively for decades. that, and having the Address input bar in the taskbar so i could rapidly type out and access folders. then Windows 11 decided to remove that feature for absolutely zero reason.
- Xaiph_Rahci 2y ago
  > absolutely zero reason A prevailing theory is that advanced users opt out of telemetry, where as regular users don't. So Microsoft has no idea what advanced users use and the OS gradually becomes less sophisticated.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    I guess similar issue with Safari not showing the url path by default, which is completely ridiculous. It is a large part of the UX. It is not going to be of benefit to anyone.
    - blacksmith_tb 2y ago
      Chrome also hides things in the url that might confuse us helpless users[1], I think they made that terrible UI change before Safari followed them off the cliff. Another reason to use FF. 1: https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/25855505/how-to-make-chrome-display-full-url?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/25855505/how-to-mak...

exogen 2y ago

I don't find reads to be very fast either. I have a lot of photos on my network drive, and opening or previewing them feels like I'm on dial-up or worse. On Windows, scrolling the folder in thumbnail mode renders them pretty smoothly on-demand, while macOS takes ages. Even just trying to open a single JPG from the network often takes 5-10 seconds. I can't even imagine why. I noticed that if I split up the folder into smaller batches and browse those subfolders instead, it's better. A few months ago I also painstakingly went through and added tags and comments to many of these files. Later, when the network drive was remounted, the comments were all wiped out while the tags remained (presumably, because of the different attribute storage mechanisms the different fields use, combined with the changing mount ID). Maybe that's recoverable somehow, but I simply don't have the patience. To me, it's as good as lost. Thanks, macOS!

a_wild_dandan 2y ago

How was his basic first step not immediately swapping out the Mac? Sparing "many hours of debugging" reads like he'd just prefer a solution over the practice/insight. But maybe I'm misreading him.

freitzkriesler2 2y ago

Can we also talk about the green button is "full screen" and not a maximized window? I had an app that adds windows tiling that also added this feature and it made osx a breeze to use. Better touch type or something like that. I went back to windows because I couldn't give up my magsafe and HDMI port. Go figure immediately after I bought a Razer blade apple understood their error and brought back the magsafe and HDMI ports.

derefr 2y ago
The green button is still “maximize” if you hold Cmd while clicking it; and you can switch which one is the default behavior in Settings.
- reaperducer 2y ago
  The green button is still “maximize” if you hold Cmd while clicking it; and you can switch which one is the default behavior in Settings. Half of the macOS complaints on HN are always PEBKAC from people who won't RTFM.
  - mewpmewp2 2y ago
    These things constantly change and who has time for all of that? Windows to me is intuitive by default, I can't find macOS intuitive after 10 years even when being forced to work with it professionally. I still can't deal with copy paste ctrl/cmd btn being in an awkward position and if I change it in the settings other problems ensue. My muscle memory is all kinds of done.
    - tpmoney 2y ago
      >These things constantly change and who has time for all of that? While Apple does change some things with some regularity, the change from "Zoom Window" to "Full Screen" for the green button (and it's alternate behavior when holding option) has been in place since 10.7, 13 years ago. The ability to double click a window titlebar to get the same effect has been in place since the classic mac OS days. I imagine most people have time within a 13 year period to type "Maximize" into the Help search and read the "Move and arrange app windows" topic, and specifically the "Maximize or minimize app windows" section therein.

tdsanchez 2y ago

I mostly use Carbon Copy Cloner, PathFinder, ditto and rsync because if I try to copy anything more than a few files it's like I'm running MacOS 9 and I have to babysit the copy like it's a five year old riding a bike with training wheels. It's pretty clear whomever is leading MacOS dev efforts has been given the directive to not commit any new resources to the MacOS Finder. For organizing files, I use File Browser Pro (iOS/Apple Silicon), Leap, DevonTHINK and anything else except the finder and tags which have never really worked very well. There are bugs in the Finder and Disk Utility that have persisted for multiple OS releases and I simply don't trust GUI file management tools in modern MacOS. In my view, Apple has decided to kill the Mac as a tool and wants everyone to use their Apple devices as consoles except devs who have to put up with being treated as second class citizens while Apple simultaneously uses the same lot of folks to do QA during "public betas". As an Apple follower for decades, I'm running away from the platform and have recently replaced iCloud (for all intents and purposes) with Syncthing. I use old Intel Macs as daily drivers because you can't really multitask effectively with Apple Silicon -and- work with files because, well, memory contention is still a problem with iGPUs just like it always has been. The speed-up of the much vaunted Apple Silicon has EVERYTHING to do with the physical proximity of the processor cores to the DRAM except when you have a lot of process running then the kernel panics because memory contention issues with storage since MOST storage has to be on the USB bus and you can get into situations where the Mac can't keep the files system consistent because APFS, snapshots and Time Machine are a fuxxing disaster... sorry folks. /venting. I think Jeff should try ssfs with disk images on either end to get closer to 125 MB/s.

derefr 2y ago
> It's pretty clear whomever is leading MacOS dev efforts has been given the directive to not commit any new resources to the MacOS Finder. Funny to say, because I just noticed the other day that as of the latest macOS version, Finder directory copies now have some kind of progress metadata (as an xattr of the top level copied folder?) that allows you to cancel [or presumably fail due to network loss] and then later resume copies.
- geerlingguy 2y ago

desro 2y ago

I've got a beefy synology nas and a variety of macs and have always had issues with smb shares, despite applying the configuration tweaks even apple recommends on their support site. i get full gigabit-speed as expected when using nfs, though, so i stick with that.

crazygringo 2y ago
Can you share the Apple-recommended tweaks? I'm trying to google it and not finding anything.
- desro 2y ago
  There are a few, but these links should get you started and hint at future keywords for search. The first link is the one I was thinking of, but there are more. YMMV with link 3 (samba wiki). 1. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102010 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102010 2. https://support.apple.com/en-us/102050 https://support.apple.com/en-us/102050 3. https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configure_Samba_to_Work_Better_with_Mac_OS_X https://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Configure_Samba_to_Work_Bet...
radicality 2y ago
Huh, interesting, I also have a decent synology (ds1621xs+), and feel like I haven't experienced too many issues with it. Time Machine over smb is wonky, but time machine overall is just wonky. And another one, working with / copying many small files is always pretty bad, but I mostly use it for larger files. I just tried copying a large video file onto the NAS via smb and get around 700MB/s, which is around what I would expect for the setup (5 * 16TB ironwolf pro in raid5, connected via thunderbolt to an sfp+ adapter). Few other things you could try apart from those articles: * `defaults write com.apple.desktopservices DSDontWriteNetworkStores -bool TRUE` to not write the DS files to network locations * Connect via IP address in cmd+K connect window. * _Turn off_ wifi completely when you connect via ethernet. Otherwise it's very likely the connection will still end up going through the wifi interface. * Enable jumbo frames on the interface (mtu 9000). * Check `smbutil statshares -a`. You want SMB 3. If it's a LAN and you don't care about encryption, then `SMB_CURR_ENCRYPT_ALGORITHM` should be `off`.

Cherian 2y ago

Are there good alternatives to Finder like Total Commander for Windows (https://www.ghisler.com/ https://www.ghisler.com/). I still miss it.

code_biologist 2y ago
Forklift (https://binarynights.com/ https://binarynights.com/) and Path Finder (https://www.cocoatech.io/ https://www.cocoatech.io/) are the two big ones I think.
- jwells89 2y ago
  For remote connections Transmit[0] is solid and among the oldest Mac apps still in development. [0]: https://panic.com/transmit/ https://panic.com/transmit/
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    Transmit has been and so far unless proven otherwise always will be one of the top 5 little apps for the Mac platform. Panic has always made some of the most intuitive/useful utilities, and there are few companies with the consistent hits that they've had.
    - jwells89 2y ago
      I’m a big fan of Panic too. Been using Transmit for a long time.

shantara 2y ago

I had the same experience as the author, and spent a lot of time tinkering with various macOS configuration options trying to make it work reliably and quickly with the network shares from Synology NAS. Something that is effortlessly works on Windows and Linux machines out of box. Eventually, I just gave up. It simply doesn’t seem to be possible. I find it extremely embarrassing for Apple that the fastest way to download and upload the files from the NAS is via its web interface, considering how much more complexity it involves compared to SMB/Samba that were specifically designed for the purpose.

avidphantasm 2y ago
ssh/sftp?
- shantara 2y ago
  Does macOS support mounting SFTP shares?
  - geerlingguy 2y ago
    Transmit (by Panic) used to allow this functionality a while ago. The closest thing that would replicate some of the niceties of a Samba or NFS mount are taken care of by sshfs, but that utility is only maintained sparingly nowadays (and has a bunch of little quirks for use cases besides "copying files to and from the share"). I use Transmit sometimes when I'm just trying to copy folders and files and don't want to whip out scp, but otherwise, I like Samba and NFS, just... they're terrible in Finder.
    - shantara 2y ago
      Thank you. I’ll give it a try
  - AnonC 2y ago
    There are some third party apps that support mounting SFTP or other remote drives/paths so that they’re accessible in Finder and in other apps. Some of these are Transmit (by Panic Software), Forklift by Binary Nights, and Mountain Duck.

bombcar 2y ago

I’ve had minimal issues with SMB against my Gentoo ZFS server, but I may not be using it the way others do. I do have the Time Machine enhancements in Samba enabled.

rado 2y ago

Impossible to open the context menu with keyboard (Shift+F10 on Windows)

icedchai 2y ago

I find folder navigation in Finder so bad, that whenever I need to use it for something (rare), I prefer to "cd" through the terminal then do an "open ."

xanderlewis 2y ago
The main bad thing is the lack of an obvious ‘parent’ button for going up the file hierarchy. It only seems to support the idea of going back in time, which is almost never what I want.
- jimsmart 2y ago
  Right-click the folder name in Finder’s title bar, shows and allows jumping to parent folders.
- icedchai 2y ago
  You can enable the "Show Path Bar" option (under the "View" menu), which helps, but still not quite what you want. I also find it weird that the path bar is at the bottom of the window.
- Toutouxc 2y ago
  I agree with you, but just in case you don't know, Cmd + Up goes up the hierarchy, Cmd + Down descends into the highlighted directory. I rarely use the mouse in Finder. List view, arrow keys and these two shortcuts are just faster.
  - adamomada 2y ago
    Yeah keyboard is the way to go. My absolute favourite completely hidden shortcut in Finder is, because all hotkeys are modifier keys, you can quickly type a few unique characters of the dir/file name and it’ll jump right to it
    - xanderlewis 2y ago
      Yes! That’s quite nice. I quite like the fact that you can rename files by hitting enter and just typing. And space toggles a very quick preview that depends on file type. Finder’s not all bad!

nubinetwork 2y ago

Windows explorer is pretty bad at file copies too, especially network file copies.

tibbydudeza 2y ago

Afaik Apple wrote their own implementation of SAMBA (smbx) instead of using the opensource samba client and frankly to be kind it is not performant - dunno why they went this route.

TheFuzzball 2y ago
In a word? GPLv3.