Hello,
I’ve got problems listing the directory content in the finder on my book live connected by afp to my mac mini with Lion 10.7.2.
When I list the content on a window 7 PC every thing is fine and very fast.
Any Ideas?
Replace the mac? Lion is the Vista of Mac OS’s - you might want to upgrade to Snow Leopard (Yes I know Snow Leopard is older, but it’s a far better OS than Lion is so I consider going back an upgrade) if replacing the Mac isn’t an option…
Keep in mind that AFP is a much slower protocol than Samba is. Because Apple blocked Samba in Lion, there is not much you can really do about this imho. If anyone else has some ideas please feel free to comment.
Are you on the latest MyBookLive firmware 02.10.09-124? If not you should upgrade the firmware. Apple made some changes to AFP just prior to releasing Lion - the first MyBookLive firmware that addressed this issues was 02.02.02-020. If your firmware is below 02.02.02-020 you will definitely experience some issues.
I can say that all 3 of my Macs are on OS X 10.7.2 - and I do not see any slowness listing directory contents on the MyBook Live - even when there are a lot of files in the directory. The only slowness I see is the time it takes for the drive to spin up from standby (about 12 seconds) and that is only on first access (but that happens in Windows 7 as well).
Also - by default - your connection to the share from the Mac will be via AFP. Can you try to connect to the share via SMB and post back here whether that makes any difference.
To connect via SMB - do the following.
Open a finder window.
Click Go on the Finder menu.
At the bottom of the pull down menu - click Connect to Server
enter smb://MyBookLive.local (substituting your MBL name for MyBookLive) for the server name.
specify either to connect as guest or use a specific user (such as admin) - click on Connect - it will take about 20 seconds to make the connection.
You will then see a list of shares - choose the share you want to connect to.
The new share will show up in the finder as MyBookLive.local (or whatever your drive is named)
Browse your directories via the SMB share vs the AFP share - and note whether you still have the slowness problem.
On my Macs - I do not see any visible difference in speed between AFP and SMB.
~Scott
Hi,
I checked the firmware and it is the 02.10.09-124 : Core F/W. Using the SMB absolutly speeds up the directory listing.
The main problem I have with the AFP was, that I have iTunes in the startup and he wouldn’t even find the Library on my share. So I keeped the iTunes folder local on my mac mini and just put the iTunes Media folder on to the share using a link.
I’ll check this now and seen if it works. Doese it make any other difference if I use SMB instead of AFP. How can I tell the WD Ny Book Live not to appear automatically in my finder side bar?
Thanks so far
Hi there,
So, now using the smb the directory listing works fine, but the initial mount of the share takes longer than mounting it via afp. When I now start iTunes directly within login, it will not find the Library. I already put the share into the automount, but this doesn’t help.
How can I remove the afp-share mounting through the MBL on my finder?
Okay - the improved speed of the directory listing with SMB is what you “should” be seeing with AFP. Something is not right and maybe somebody from WD can comment.
With the Connect to Server option in Finder - the mount that you have established via SMB will be lost if you log out, shutdown or reboot. What you need to do is add that mount either as a login item or set it up to mount via autofs (which requires editing some Mac OS X system files.
When you say you put the share into the “automount” - how exactly did you do that - as a login item or via autofs?
It sounds like you have your iTunes library stored on the MBL - as well as having iTunes automatically opening upon login? In which case you have to somehow guarantee that the required network share is available at the time that iTunes tries to open. I would think that might be problematic and prone to failure because your SMB mount may not be available at the time iTunes tries to open. I suspect this may even be the case with AFP. You will also need to repoint iTunes so that it is looking for the library in the samba share vs the afp share.
Just out of curiosity - did your AFP slowness start before or after you added iTunes as a login item? I’m not sure I would want iTunes opening every time I restart or login to the Mac. Can you remove iTunes from the login items - reboot - and see if your AFP problem goes away.
Also - to answer your other question - you will continue to see two the two AFP volumes for your MBL in the left side of the finder - under shared. I believe that it is Boujour that is detecting them. The only way to hide them is to open finder preferences and uncheck the box next to Bonjour computers in the Sidebar preferences tab.
I am not sure of the exact difference between AFP and SMB - these are just different protocols used for accessing network resources. I can’t say whether one is better than the other. Time Machine - however - can only back up to an AFP share. On a Mac - AFP may work better than SMB - in some specific circumstances.
~Scott
Thanks scott for the answers so far.
I have mounted the share over the login items and also placed it before starting iTunes.
It sounds like you have your iTunes library stored on the MBL - as well as having iTunes automatically opening upon login?
Yes, that’s the way I did it. But, now I have my iTunes Library stored local, and just the Folder iTunes Media is located on MBL. I created a symbolic link between the local itunes media Folder and the the one on the MBL. For the moment it works fine for me, but this is not how it should be.
When I remove iTunes from the login items, this doesn’t have an effect to the speed.
I still think you should not be seeing the slowness with an AFP mounted share. Also - what are you gaining - other than freeing up space on your local hard drive - by having only your media folder and not your enitre itunes library located on the MBL?
