Quote
.I won't have much patience with the nonsense

Sorry, the issue is not patience and, frankly, most of us are not concerned with how much or how little you have.

Is your external an HDD (mechanical hard drive)? If so, erasing and overwriting data is pretty straightforward but if you do not have at least 10% more space than you need (recommendation is 15%), there will be problems. The OS must have overhead to work. If an HDD, ignore the rest of this post

If, however, your external is an SSD (solid state drives). then the problem is that you do not understand how they work. It is not at all like an HDD where erasing clears a directory and the blocks are overwritten by new data.

In an SSD, when a file is erased. TRIM (in the OS for Mac/Win/Linux) and GarbageCollection (contained in the drive's firmware) must prepare the cells to accept new data. This can take anywhere from ten minutes to 72 hours depending on how much drive space must be prepared. After you erase data, you can run GetInfo on your drive and under the amount of space you will see something like (XX.XX GB purgeable) — this is space that you will not become available until after TRIM/GarbageCollection have done their thing.

This process is even slower depending on how an external drive connected and what type of enclosure contains the drive. On a Mac, TRIM does not work over USB 2–3 or Ethernet — Period. In this case, you have the GarbageCollection Utility only to do this work.

The SSD must be connected by eSATA, Thunderbolt, PCIe over Thunderbolt 3/4 or USB 4 for TRIM to be enabled.

If an NVMe 3 x4 (blade) connected by PCIe over Thunderbolt 3/4 or USB 4, TRIM is enabled automatically — nothing more to do.

If, however, your SSD is a 2.5" form and it is connected via eSATA or Thunderbolt, then TRIM must be enabled manually with the following Terminal Command:

sudo trimforce enable <return> or <enter> key. You will then enter your Admin password before you are presented with some yes/no questions — Yes, you want to do this; No, you do not want to stop the process. TRIM is already part of the macOS, you are just giving it permission to run on 2.5" drives (no Mac ever had these installed by Apple).

When done, you will be able to verify this in your System Report — About this Mac. Navigate to the bus containing the drive to find TRIM - Yes. Often, after an OS update, you will need to do this again.

Last edited by Mike Halloran; 06/29/24 05:09 PM.
BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac
24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP
Digital Performer11, LogicPro, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro64/Notion6 /Overture5