How to fix slow file drag in Mac OS X Lion

[Mia!]

I recently upgraded from OSX Snow Leopard Lion, and dragging the files became unbearably slow. I've always moved large files and folders with multiple files without any problem in SL, but this is really painful Lion. Just to be clear, I'm doing things the same way I always did the only thing that changes is the operating system. Dragging the file is converted slowly in all situations, even from one folder to another, and from my Mac to an external hard drive (either via FireWire and USB). Why drag the file to be so slow? Is there a key for this error?

[Alfons]

If you just installed the lion, then you need your computer to be indexed in the spotlight. This happens automatically and can make your computer slow for a while. Let your team and you will experience an unexplained increase in speed.

[Gania]

I updated both my Mac for two weeks and already indexed by Spotlight. So there must be incredible wrong.

[Erakna]

Perhaps you have a third party app that is taking up CPU that isn't doing well with Lion. Check that stuff out in your activity monitor and report back with your findinger. Make a screen shot of activity monitor ordered by highest CPU as well as real memory.

[Bontu]

Perhaps you have a third party application that is occupying the CPU is not doing well with the lion.
Make sure things in the activity monitor and report its finding. Make a screenshot of activity monitor ordedered for maximum CPU and real memory.

[!Shea!]

You have a couple of things on the computer taking a large amount of real memory. Can you give us a screen shot as he did but for real memory from high to low?

[Koman]

This is the difficulty here; see how you're running out of green space in the pie chart. This means that all applications are using the most memory. let us know how to reset go.

[Shurod]

Resetting the SMC will likely not have much effect here. If your memory is running low then try quitting some applications until the green component of the pie chart in that window gets larger. A good way to do this is just restart and keep your applications closed, and then see if the slow dragging behavior still occurs.

A couple of options that may help besides freeing memory (or getting more RAM to accommodate your increased memory use), is to use Disk Utility to test the disk for errors. Run a disk verification routine when you have selected the boot volume, and then repeat this when you have selected the boot drive (the device above the boot volume name). If you see any errors then reboot to the Lion recovery partition (restart with Command-R pressed), and perform the fix routines.

[Patcy]

Thank you very much for your help! I repeated all procedures (reset PRAM, reset the SMC, the disk check, restart the computer) and now drag the file on my MacBook Pro (15 "late 2008) seems to be working well. I will try the same procedures on my iMac (27 "Late 2009) at work. When I bought my MacBook Pro, I upgraded RAM from 2 to 4 GB. Do you know if you can upgrade the RAM more on this model?

[Loveyboo]

If your system is a late 2008 MacBook "Pro" model then I'm assuming it’s a MacBook Pro 5,1. In this case you should be able to upgrade to 8GB RAM, though you may need to apply this firmware update. Check your boot ROM version (in the System Information utility), and if it is not "MBP51.007E.B05," then apply the firmware update and you should be able to get up to 8GB RAM into the system.

[Ticod]

Yeah I just make sure the RAM upgrade coincides with the specifications of your current RAM (especially the speed and type - that is, 204-pin, PC8500/1066MHz, DDR3). Any manufacturer of RAM will work, so do not waste money on expensive Apple RAM crazy. You should be able to get an 8 GB for about $ 40-50, not $ 220 that Apple wants.