Beginner Imac streaming

dinorock

dinorock

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Mike
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Hi al,l just a quick question on streaming. whilst streaming video my mac has started pixalating whilst watching vids online. it seems my external hard drive is working in the background and slowing the streaming down? But i dont have any current backups going on. and i dont want to keep unplugging my external every time i watch a vid. any ideas? (imac i5 16gb 1tb with around 75% free space on it) any help would be great (y) please be aware whilst being a capable editer in ps lightroom etc, computers send me dizzy so use small words :)
 
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It may be Spotlight is indexing the drive or may bet he Mac is doing some housekeeping. Time machine will also check to see if there has been any change since it last backed up. This may not show up as a backup 'cos if there is no change it wont backup It may also depend on what you are streaming. I take it that when you eject the external drive everything is OK.. If Spotlight is indexing, then you can stop it from working on that drive

Open system preferences, and from the top row choose spotlight. Click on the "PRIVACY" tab. Now drag the external drive icon into that window. ( Don't worry the drive wont disappear ) . Spotlight will now ignore that drive when it indexes

If the only way to get good streaming is to stop the external drive then there is a simple way to do it.

Open the Utilities folder and in there you will find Disk Utility. Run Disk Utility. You will see in DU's window a list of connected drives. Select your external drive and press the EJECT button at the top of the window. The disk is now off line. When you want to have it working again, select the disk and choose MOUNT. The disk is now back on line and up and running. Each operation takes a couple of seconds.
 
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Chappers said:
It may be Spotlight is indexing the drive or may bet he Mac is doing some housekeeping. Time machine will also check to see if there has been any change since it last backed up. This may not show up as a backup 'cos if there is no change it wont backup It may also depend on what you are streaming. I take it that when you eject the external drive everything is OK.. If Spotlight is indexing, then you can stop it from working on that drive

Open system preferences, and from the top row choose spotlight. Click on the "PRIVACY" tab. Now drag the external drive icon into that window. ( Don't worry the drive wont disappear ) . Spotlight will now ignore that drive when it indexes

If the only way to get good streaming is to stop the external drive then there is a simple way to do it.

Open the Utilities folder and in there you will find Disk Utility. Run Disk Utility. You will see in DU's window a list of connected drives. Select your external drive and press the EJECT button at the top of the window. The disk is now off line. When you want to have it working again, select the disk and choose MOUNT. The disk is now back on line and up and running. Each operation takes a couple of seconds.
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yep that seems to be helping so i have stuff running in the backgroung that dos'nt nessasaraly show as obvious?
 
You could also use activity monitor ( Also in Utilities) , and find "Spotlight" you can see how much load it's imposing on you system . However if all is working OK the just leave it :)
 
Cheers mate yeah seems good with ext offline cheers:)
 
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