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Russell Bell

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jan 4, 2014
20
1
I have an early 2011 MacBook Pro with a 2.3 GHz Intel Core i5 and 4 GB of RAM running Mavericks. Over time, the system has slowed down. In April 2014 (about a week before AppleCare expired) I went to the Genius Bar regarding the slowdown and after running some tests I was told there was a "software conflict" and reinstalled the OS. In July, my computer had slowed down again and after speaking to a computer guy I know, he recommended using "update_dyld_shared_cache -root / -force" in Terminal. While this has worked, I still feel as though my computer is slower than I would like and I usually restart it about once every 7 to 10 days if it gets particularly slow. By comparison, for the first few years I had this computer, I almost never had to restart.

As I'm looking to freshen things up, would a clean install of Yosemite be a good idea or would it not really help that much? I have Time Machine backups on a NAS and keep all of my media on that NAS (lossless files are too large for the internal HDD).

Also, would it be possible to fresh install from a 32 GB SD Class 10 card? I ask because I have an SD card but don't have a large enough USB stick and if I don't have to buy a USB stick, I'd prefer not to.

Thanks.
 
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