Write 0's is the way to go

[robotrenegade]

I would just like to say, that I love to clean install the os every 4 months. Your computer run so much better and faster. :D

[cluthz]

With Old mac os (6,7,8,9) i did this once every year, but after osx came out i have never done it.
My old sawtooth G4 has had 10.1, 10. and now 10.3, and i only updated the OS every time insted of wiping the the hd. I still think its running great (well as great as a G4 400 mhz could)
I can't see why erasing your hd (and writing zeros when you formating it) every fourth month would be resonable.
Maybe you feel it runs faster that way, but i don't see why.
In my opinion, I think it's total waste of time...

[virividox]

thats a bit extreme, every 4 months!!! wow, with my xp machine i do it every year, i see less reason to do i with my mac as it doesnt gett cluterred at all

[edesignuk]

http://upload.yo-momma.net/uploads/macros/fabulous.jpg

Thanks for sharing! :D

Note to any mac newbies reading, do not format your mac every 4 months!

[robotrenegade]

Well I do a lot of video and multi-media projects(making the drive make empty fragments). From what I've seens and heard its best to clean install when you upgrade OS like 10.2 to 10.3. Every four months maybe crazy if you don't have a 500GB LaCid firewire 2 drive. It really only takes about 2 hours to back up and running. Do it sometime, it really helps. I bet you'll see a faster computer.

[edesignuk]

If you do a lot of media, surely you should have a drive for OS/apps, and then a bloody great drive for the data (video etc) that you (understandably) wipe every few months, but leave your OS/apps drive alone.

[robotrenegade]

why would you need a drive just for your apps.

[edesignuk]

why would you need a drive just for your apps.Did I say that? No. I said OS/apps. You keep all the tools you need to work on one drive (your OS+apps), then you keep your data files on a separate drive so that you can wipe that drive as often as you like, without causing you the hassle of reinstalling your OS and all your apps.

[dotnina]

edesign -- that is one of your best images yet. :)

I also don't understand why a clean install every 4 months would be beneficial. I'm not knocking it, I'm just wondering. Is there really a noticable speed difference? Are there other benefits too?

[edesignuk]

edesign -- that is one of your best images yet. :)

I also don't understand why a clean install every 4 months would be beneficial. I'm not knocking it, I'm just wondering. Is there really a noticable speed difference? Are there other benefits too?If you were doing lots of video work, and the video data was on the same drive as your OS and apps, then yes, it would make a difference (video work fragments drives like there's no tomorrow). But as I said, if you are doing lots of video stuff you should really have a separate drive for it so that your OS/app speed isn't effected.

[robotrenegade]

edesign -- that is one of your best images yet. :)

I also don't understand why a clean install every 4 months would be beneficial. I'm not knocking it, I'm just wondering. Is there really a noticable speed difference? Are there other benefits too?

I do it for that reason, doing it every 4 or 6 months isn't a big deal for me. It's really not as hard as others are saying. You do see a speed difference. Systems seems to run better. You don't need to do this, I just like to. But listen to whatever you like.

[cluthz]

You don't need a entire drive for video scratch, a partition is good enought.
You can wipe the partition instead of the whole drive..

[robotrenegade]

Did I say that? No. I said OS/apps. You keep all the tools you need to work on one drive (your OS+apps), then you keep your data files on a separate drive so that you can wipe that drive as often as you like, without causing you the hassle of reinstalling your OS and all your apps.
"did i say that, ummm yes you did, oh sorry I missed os +apps. You really need to relax. Walk away from the computer it's only a message board.

[QCassidy352]

"did i say that, ummm yes you did, oh sorry I missed os +apps. You really need to relax. Walk away from the computer it's only a message board.

um... nobody's getting upset here but you. Let's just all cool it, ok? Seems to me to be totally a matter of preference... if you think it helps to clean install, great, go for it. Others don't find it necessary. Fair enough?

[edesignuk]

"did i say that, ummm yes you did, oh sorry I missed os +apps. You really need to relax. Walk away from the computer it's only a message board.Ummmm, no, I didn't. OS/Apps means OS+apps, it's one an the same :rolleyes:

Only a msg board, IS IT!? Gee, thanks for pointing that out to me.

[relaxed] :p

[mms]

Reformatting so often... that's for Linux users. Like they say, if there's no problem then don't try to fix it. OS X should work just fine without continual reformats under most uses. I find that the regular system maintenance (repair permissions, update prebindings, run cron tasks... you're of course doing these, right?) are enough to keep my system running smoothly.

[King Cobra]

Note to any mac newbies reading, do not format your mac every 4 months!

Newbs, you will disregard the above suggestion. It's better to refresh your system pretty often versus once every year or two or three. You keep the number of old beta/bugs/memory leaks on your system down if you keep refreshing your Hard Drive, whereas if you don't refresh your Hard Drive at least once a year, those problems will stay on your computer and multiply over time, leading to more problems. Anyone that sees more than one refresh per year as irrational and thus refreshes his/her machine not so often is thus being stubborn in his/her method of thinking. If it's due to lazyness or lack of time for not refreshing often, well, that's another story.

A refresh every four months is nice. I do it once every 5 to 7 months, and almost never go past 7 months before a refreshment...usually because AppleWorks develops this wierd stuttering problem after 4 months of usage and become serious at 6 months. Still, with a nice big external Hard Drive, I can refresh my system in one day.

[Mechcozmo]

I have never wiped my iMacs hard drive. It runs like a charm. If you do a lot of video/picture work, just create a new partition, then wipe that every once in a while. I'm sorry to say that I don't do that with my iMac, but when I get Tiger I might set it up that way...

Anyway, every 4 months is really extreame. Everyone here I belive knows that, nessicary or not. And writing 0s??? You don't sell it every 4 months do you?

(And if you do, can I get some of that money tree seeds?)

[JFreak]

A LOT better solution would be to partition your system drive in such a way that the OS (system+library) and apps reside in one partition and all user files somewhere else. that way the only changes that the system partition will be affected are those that come from updating the OS or some apps. or if you do really heavy work and can only afford really small RAM and therefore do massive hard drive swapping.

"how do i move user files away from the system partition?" - you need to have active root account and edit /etc/fstab file with a text editor via terminal. with that file you can setup a mount point (a low-level hard drive alias) and telling the system that "/Users" directory is found from "/Volumes/anotherpartition" just makes that another partition appear as /Users folder and the system keeps running as usual - only that it writes all files addressed to /Users to that anotherpartition you defined in the /etc/fstab file.

there is another benefit from this approach, too, and it's called "system re-install without a need for user file backups". as you can understand, wiping the system partition will not wipe the user partition and doing a re-install to the system partition will not affect the user partition in any way. only that your re-installed system will not automatically see your anotherpartition as the /Users folder but you will need to do the /etc/fstab modifications again after re-install, or, you can just back up the fstab file and after re-install, just copy that file back in its place and do a reboot.

i wouldn't do a complete re-install every 4 months even if i have this partitioning scheme implemented. it's not necessary anymore. the system slowdowns are just plain and simply a memory from the past. why? because i only have 15GB for system and apps, which means there's not much additional space that the system could fragment itself into.

[BakedBeans]

http://upload.yo-momma.net/uploads/macros/fabulous.jpg

Thanks for sharing! :D

Note to any mac newbies reading, do not format your mac every 4 months!

ITS OFFICIAL


after the little britain one you are macro king or queen for those that believe that thats you in you 'tar ;)

[HiRez]

What are all these problems you people are having that make you want to wipe your hard drive periodically? That's NUTS with OS X. First of all it keeps its own system fairly well defragmented and optimized. Any other user drives or partitions you can keep in top shape with a good disk utility like DiskWarrior or Tech Tool Pro. I've had OS X on my PowerBook since 10.0, now 10.3, without ever having reinstalled or wiping my hard drive. And my Mac gets a workout. I run dozens of apps from 3D rendering to Xcode to After Effects to Cubase, plus many games that have come and gone.

I can't imagine the hassle of this clean install nonsense. Unless you have a specific problem, that is completely unnecessary. Just periodically run the works with your disk utility, and run Repair Permissions and you'll be fine.

[JFreak]

What are all these problems you people are having that make you want to wipe your hard drive periodically?

problem is that in default osx installation the USER FILES are located on the same partition than the SYSTEM FILES, and while system keeps itself in fairly good condition, that "fairly good and decent" becomes "horrible" once the user files have been fragmented all over the partition. it is only after that point (where the system partition is already fragmented by user files) when doing a system upgrade or a major app install leads into even more severylu fragmented system.

if system files and apps are installed into a dedicated partition and all user files (including user library (!) that has all preference files and such) are located elsewhere, THEN it's overkill to reinstall periodically.

when i was new to osx i used the default installation and found that in my (relatively heavy) use the system was taking a serious performance hit after half a year, give or take a few months. i then re-installed few times a year to make system perform as it should, but about a year ago i decided to accept the little trouble called partitioning, and guess what - the system has not been affected from slowdowns ever since! i don't have to think about re-installing panther, because the system keeps performing, and i can assume i don't have to do that before next fall when i'm installing the tiger.

[HiRez]

problem is that in default osx installation the USER FILES are located on the same partition than the SYSTEM FILES, and while system keeps itself in fairly good condition, that "fairly good and decent" becomes "horrible" once the user files have been fragmented all over the partition.
Aye, I do have my System on a separate partition as well. It helps. One for OS X, one for user folders, one for media only. That helps. But, you can still defrag the System disk using a DW or TTP, whether it has user files on it or not.

[JFreak]

Aye, I do have my System on a separate partition as well. It helps. One for OS X, one for user folders, one for media only. That helps. But, you can still defrag the System disk using a DW or TTP, whether it has user files on it or not.

yep, but (given that you don't reinstall apps on daily basis) the point is that you don't even have to defrag the system drive, if you only install apps once, and do the os/app upgrades that apple and 3rd parties suggest.

if you have system and user files on separate partitions, you'd only have to defrag the user files. it's actually better to leave the system as it is ;)

[JFreak]

by the way, the /etc/fstab trick is REQUIRED step in separating user files from system partition - if you don't do it (and just save your documents elsewhere), the system keeps using user library (called ~/Library) on the system drive, which is the #1 reason for system drive fragmentation.

so, to repeat myself: you don't have truly isolated your system before you make a /Users mount point that leads to some other partition.

[johnnyjibbs]

I have never reinstalled my OS (on Windows or otherwise) and, while those Windows machines have got slower with time, my Mac has done the opposite. My PowerBook is a year old this week and faster than ever. All I do is run MacJanitor about once a month and repair permissions occasionnaly. As it came with 10.2.7 preinstalled, I performed an "upgrade install" to Panther with the Panther up-to-date discs that Apple sent to me complimentary and have then just upgraded when the minor upgrades have been released.

I have no idea what I'm doing with the terminal or anything else, and I don't think the average user should have to worry about that. I leave things as is and I have never had a problem.

[Mechcozmo]

http://upload.yo-momma.net/uploads/macros/fabulous.jpg

Thanks for sharing! :D

Note to any mac newbies reading, do not format your mac every 4 months!

When I get my avatar, I'm gonna change it to whatever new picture I see you upload, edesignuk.

I second this notion! Reformating is a pain in the butt! Every 4 years is a good amount of time...

[Tusk]

Newbs, you will disregard the above suggestion. It's better to refresh your system pretty often versus once every year or two or three.

I'm glad I didn't know that before I switched to mac last month. Otherwise, I would have stuck with Windows. Not near as much hassle. :D

[crenz]

You don't need a entire drive for video scratch, a partition is good enought.
You can wipe the partition instead of the whole drive..

Partitions are good enough to keep things apart from each other, but a separate hard disk can bring a speed increase.

[emw]

I have never wiped my iMacs hard drive. It runs like a charm.

It would be interesting to see if someone could do a true performance comparison. Like you, I seldom, if ever, do a complete system rewrite simply because I am too lazy, but if there was any quantifiable benefit in terms of improved system speeds or reduced errors, I may consider it.

[jeremy.king]

Newbs, you will disregard the above suggestion. It's better to refresh your system pretty often versus once every year or two or three. You keep the number of old beta/bugs/memory leaks on your system down if you keep refreshing your Hard Drive, whereas if you don't refresh your Hard Drive at least once a year, those problems will stay on your computer and multiply over time, leading to more problems. Anyone that sees more than one refresh per year as irrational and thus refreshes his/her machine not so often is thus being stubborn in his/her method of thinking. If it's due to lazyness or lack of time for not refreshing often, well, that's another story

This is the biggest load of crap I have ever heard. I have yet to refresh/reload/reinstall my Dual 867 and it runs plenty fine. Im curious what old beta/bugs/memory leaks you are referring to. Do you even know what a memory leak is? Its a software problem, and as long as my sytem software is current and my applications are up-to-date - all accomplished with System update, I am fine.

The bottom line is if you are a newb or a veteran, there is no reason to wipe and reinstall once a year. PERIOD. But you should install updates when apple releases them, and you should install updates for software you use, and you should run the daily/weekly/monthly cron tasks or use MacJanitor. But in no case should you reinstall the entire system for sake of doing so.

[bankshot]

by the way, the /etc/fstab trick is REQUIRED step in separating user files from system partition - if you don't do it (and just save your documents elsewhere), the system keeps using user library (called ~/Library) on the system drive, which is the #1 reason for system drive fragmentation.

Nah, there's no need to go messing with /etc/fstab. Just a symbolic link from /Users to /Volumes/whatever will do. My user drive is called 'Users' (who would've guessed?) so a quick sudo ln -s /Volumes/Users /Users does the trick (after the original /Users has been moved out of the way!).

/etc/fstab is fun for us old Unix geeks, but I seem to recall that OS X doesn't always use it (or perhaps some versions didn't). I've had zero problems with the symbolic link method, and it's probably a little easier for non-Unix people to do. ;)

As for fragmentation, keep in mind that Panther automatically defragments files under 20 MB. So while it doesn't affect large media/data files, it's still doing a pretty good job of keeping the disk tidy. I'd guess the majority of gradual slowdowns are due to issues like prebinding, messed up preferences, launch services bloat, etc.

[NusuniAdmin]

With my beige g3 i would reinstall about every 6 months, but thats only because IT DID make it faster. i did not do a full zeroing of the hd, usually just a quick format.

With ibook well...I am not planning on doing it anytime soon. In fact I am planning on getting external enclosure for my 60 gig hd in my beige to install ydl 4.0 on :)

i would also like to add the only reason i reinstalled that often on the beige was because of that dang hd size limit for the os x partition. Even when i put all my big apps in a seperate partiton the thing still only had like 1 gig (even less usually) of space available (for the os x partion) and as we all know os x becomes a pain when available space is that low. But on average I would reinstall when the space got below 1.7 gigs usually, then id do a full reinstall and stuff and id have roughly 3-4 gigs available...