hi, i am thinking about buying the current 13inch macbook pro. i am switching from window because my computer right now has crashed many times and it is a pain in the butt to redo everything. what is the life expectiancy of the base model macbook pro and how do i keep it fast? and is this a good buy for keeping it in the future?
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wondering how long macbook pros stay fast and how to keep them fast
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gilkisson
macrumors 65816
Congrats. Welcome to the real world...
First, you will have to train yourself to forget Windows-think. There isn't a lot you need to do to keep your Mac running well. You don't need to defrag the drive, ever. You don't need to install anticrapware programs, as there are zero true viruses in the wild which affect modern OSX installs. True, there do exist some Trojans, and some malware/spyware, but the only way to get those is to install them, and give the admin password. Bottom line, don't install warez or cracks.
Beyong that, don't drop your Mac, don't take it swimming, and don't attempt to eat it. Other than that, you will love it for years to come. You will probably stop using your new Mac when you upgrade to the newest shiny Mac that comes along... And then, you will enjoy nice resale value, far better than most pc resales.
First, you will have to train yourself to forget Windows-think. There isn't a lot you need to do to keep your Mac running well. You don't need to defrag the drive, ever. You don't need to install anticrapware programs, as there are zero true viruses in the wild which affect modern OSX installs. True, there do exist some Trojans, and some malware/spyware, but the only way to get those is to install them, and give the admin password. Bottom line, don't install warez or cracks.
Beyong that, don't drop your Mac, don't take it swimming, and don't attempt to eat it. Other than that, you will love it for years to come. You will probably stop using your new Mac when you upgrade to the newest shiny Mac that comes along... And then, you will enjoy nice resale value, far better than most pc resales.
thejadedmonkey
macrumors G3
OS Rot is the term you're looking for. It happens to every OS to some extent, Windows more than OS X, but it will happen.
Seven has been much better than previous versions. After using it since the first month of the RC, I've never had to do anything major in terms of maintenance.
gilkisson
macrumors 65816
You can nuke all that if you choose to do so. It also depends on which browser you prefer... I like safari, but lots of folks use firefox, chrome, etc.
Either way, it's not that big a deal.
gilkisson
macrumors 65816
Truth. If I had to choose between eating a slug and using Win7, the slug lives. If it's between the slug and Vista, however... Nom nom slug.
Judging by your usage of the term "crash" I'm guessing that thejadedmonkey has your problem pegged. If you install crap, your system will slow down.
If you buy a brand new mac, install office software on it and only use it to type or browse the internet, it will stay the same speed until the day it dies. The same is true for a Windows machine. But as soon as you start downloading and installing junk, your system will begin to get clogged.
If you buy a brand new mac, install office software on it and only use it to type or browse the internet, it will stay the same speed until the day it dies. The same is true for a Windows machine. But as soon as you start downloading and installing junk, your system will begin to get clogged.
i have to agree with you, i have used vista since 2007 and using it was tortue if you had a relatively slow pc, but win 7 is not bad but mac osx is way better (and faster).
question, why dont people consider macs a pc, it is a personal computer running os x
i dont install crap, it is just too much random fails like blue screen of death i cant stand, but win 7 has improved it a lot
What were you using, windows 98? I've seen maybe a dozen blue screens with xp in the last few years, all caused by faulty drivers or failed hardware. None with windows 7 yet, although I've only used it on a few machines, this macbook being one of them.
When I mention crap, I mean literally almost any program from the internet. Everything wants to sit in your system tray these days. Every application tries to install extra update services and run-on-startup crap. Mac or Windows, it happens all the time.
so far i had very minor problems with win7 but the stuff i want to do it cant do with a windows computer, i need a mac and a faster computer since my windows laptop is a few years old (3 years old)
There's lots of good reasons for wanting a Mac, but saying it can do something a windows computer can't is silly.
Now if your saying a new computer can do stuff your old computer can't, I'd believe that, but it would be true whether you were running OSX or Win7
With video editing ram and hard drive speeds are the two big factors, they will be come bottle necked way sooner than your CPU. Upgrade your hard drive to something like 500gb 7200 rpm. SSD is an option but I would personally wait till prices come down. Ram can be upgraded to 8gb from an online store like OWC for like $250 instead of Apples $400: http://www.macsales.com/
Do your self a favor and if you get external storage make sure you buy Firewire 800 drives to take advantage of the speed.
I am a Macbook Newbie
http://yfrog.com/j5h6fp
Can someone tell me what is this? I am using Bumptop so it looks a bit different but I am not really sure what happens when I install programs in Mac...
And I also don't know if this needs to be deleted...or anything like that.
Your input is appreciated.
http://yfrog.com/j5h6fp
Can someone tell me what is this? I am using Bumptop so it looks a bit different but I am not really sure what happens when I install programs in Mac...
And I also don't know if this needs to be deleted...or anything like that.
Your input is appreciated.
davidlv
macrumors 68020
Welcome to the Mac community. the life expectancy of a Mac is a hard question to answer, every model/individual machine is different, but I know many people still using iBook G4s made in 2002-2003 and even some G4 towers made before that. I am sure many people have older Macs too, still working just fine. Your 13" Macbook Pro should last until it is outdated and you will probably suffer some for letting it go out to pasture.
As for maintenance, you can get away with doing almost nothing, many Mac owners just use the machine and do nothing extra at all. Still it is better to have a good backup plan in effect, data can be very valuable. And doing a little preventive maintenance is also advisable. I suggest getting Disk Warrior, install it on your HD and your backup (bootable) HD (USB or Firewire) and run it on both disks occasionally. You have to run it on the disk other than the bootup disk, so it is necessary to have that bootable external HD. Running Repair Permissions is good occasionally, especially after running installer programs like Adobe's Flash, that leave permissions wrong after they install something. Defragmentation is no longer the major problem it used to be, you can ignore that aspect. There are built-in maintenance scripts in OS X, and these can also be run by applications like the popular Onyx (freeware) along with other things like cache deleters etc.
All in all, OS X lets you concentrate on your work or entertainment more and you do not have to fuss with the computer just to keep it working. Enjoy your life more with your new Mac. 😎
😎
Fishrrman
macrumors Nehalem
davidlv gave a pretty good dissertation on how to keep a Mac running up to snuff.
However, I disagree with his (and Apple's) assessment that you don't need to defrag the hard drive, at least once in a while. iDefrag does this very well.
The basic provisos seem to be:
- Keep a modest amount of "free space" on the drive (at least 10%, 15-20% might be better)
- Run the "cron" scripts routinely (MacJanitor, Oynx)
- Clean out logs and caches routinely (Oynx, Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner)
- Repair permissions weekly
- Use Disk Utility's "repair disk" feature routinely
- defragment and optimize the drive once in a while
This works for me. I'm typing this on a PowerMac g4 (made in 2004), still running the _original_ installation of the software (NEVER had to do a "reinstall"). It does just fine for day-to-day things....
However, I disagree with his (and Apple's) assessment that you don't need to defrag the hard drive, at least once in a while. iDefrag does this very well.
The basic provisos seem to be:
- Keep a modest amount of "free space" on the drive (at least 10%, 15-20% might be better)
- Run the "cron" scripts routinely (MacJanitor, Oynx)
- Clean out logs and caches routinely (Oynx, Snow Leopard Cache Cleaner)
- Repair permissions weekly
- Use Disk Utility's "repair disk" feature routinely
- defragment and optimize the drive once in a while
This works for me. I'm typing this on a PowerMac g4 (made in 2004), still running the _original_ installation of the software (NEVER had to do a "reinstall"). It does just fine for day-to-day things....
Just got a 13 MBP after decades on Windows. I think overall you're going to find that its incredibly efficient right out of the box. 11 processes on startup compared to 50? That's insane to me. But i've heard the same things that you're reading
-hardly any viruses (if any) for OSX.
-naturally less bugs and crashes (since of course Apple makes both the hardware and software).
-as far as speed, a big selling point for me was the fact that in the future I can upgrade the MBP to 8gb of RAM. That's overkill right now but maybe not in 2013.
I really don't think you can go wrong. Windows 7 is a great improvement but OSX is so smart and efficient it almost feels like you're cheating.