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How to make your Mac snappy again?

M

MBX

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Sep 14, 2006
2,030
817
Hey,
anybody know of a way to make your Mac snappy again, as if just brand new?

I remember that even if i migrate all my apps/ files to a brandnew Mac it's always so snappy but after a while it just takes forever to load things on startup and to launch applications.

I tried OnyX and quick defragmentation with iDefrag but none of these helped really.

Does anybody know of a tool that really optimizes Snow Leopard as if brand new?

Thanks
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Make a new user profile and move everything over.

or wipe and do a clean install.

OS rot on OS X is pretty bad anymore :\
Click to expand...

I forgot to say that my question was with this procedure excluded ;)

I really don't want to go through that process.

Anyway, i guess if there is none there is none. Thought to ask anyway.

My assumption is that i should hook-up my MacBook pro to another mac and do a full iDefrag defragmentation and not just the quick online one. Although the "quick online" one already takes forever!

Full defragmentation might not help though, not sure.
 
I would be surprised if a defrag would work, especially with the fact that Mac OS X systems don't need to be manually defragged anyway. I don't even bother defragging my Windows systems anymore as the results provide little effect and I find it hard to heavly fragment the file system.
 
thejadedmonkey said:
Make a new user profile and move everything over.

or wipe and do a clean install.

OS rot on OS X is pretty bad anymore :\
Click to expand...

Quit spreading this junk. You don't know what you are doing, just like most Windows users do not know what they are doing. Don't hide behind your bogus assumption. And you need to make a distinction, it isn't the OS rotting on its' own. It is the 3rd party software and poor maintenance on your part.

I run a network of over 500 Macs and never get complaints of "rot."

To the OP. You need to check your running processes. See what is using the most resources. This is the best way to determine what is slowing you down.
 
calderone said:
Quit spreading this junk. You don't know what you are doing, just like most Windows users do not know what they are doing. Don't hide behind your bogus assumption. And you need to make a distinction, it isn't the OS rotting on its' own. It is the 3rd party software and poor maintenance on your part.

I run a network of over 500 Macs and never get complaints of "rot."

To the OP. You need to check your running processes. See what is using the most resources. This is the best way to determine what is slowing you down.
Click to expand...

Well the question is what processes are really needed and what not. Really hard to know.

Often the processes names' are quite cryptic.
 
Sorry, but this isn't Windows. Process names are not that cryptic in OS X.

Besides, a good place to start is with processes started by your user account. But again, the take away from my post was "using the most resources." It doesn't matter if they are system or user processes, if a process is consuming excessive resources it needs to be explored.

For example, many complain about mdworker working hard. If you find that, you can search and find a solution.
 
"I tried OnyX and quick defragmentation with iDefrag but none of these helped really."

after some suggestions, the OP later said,
"I really don't want to go through that process.
Anyway, i guess if there is none there is none. Thought to ask anyway."

Therein lies the rub.

There ARE ways to significantly speed up an older Mac -- BUT, you must be willing to "go through some processes".

If you're not willing to go through them, you don't get the speed.

By the way, "quick" defragmentation won't help much, because all it does is defragment files "in place". If you REALLY want to get iDefrag to help you out, you have to boot up the Mac from an EXTERNAL source (i.e., other than the "main" drive), and "aim" iDefrag at the main drive. Then get it to do an "optimization".

But I've found another secret to keeping an aging Mac "snappy", and avoiding the problems of "sluggishness" as time goes by.

Very few users do this, but I've heard it's an old (but time-proven) technique.

What I do is PARTITION the main drive, and keep a basic System and my apps on the "boot partition", and keep EVERYTHING ELSE on other partitions.

This means deliberately "leaning out" your Home folder, so that it doesn't get all clogged up with gigabytes of video, audio, or whatever.

The "boot partition" can be relatively small -- under 50gig is fine, or even smaller. The System itself isn't going to "grow" too much over time (it DOES grow a little, though). Your Applications/Library folders will grow as you add apps over time.

It's the Home folder that grows unwieldy over time as users just keep dumping more and more into it. Take control of what goes into there, and deliberately segregate your data in re to its importance and relevance.

I also keep a "Main data" partition which is for my _important_ data (medical records, financial, etc.) that is not large in size. This makes it very easy to backup and find important files when needed.

I keep a "less important" partition for things which I don't back up. This would contain copies of downloaded apps, updates, etc. -- things which you can probably get just as easily "from the net" if you really had to.

Things like videos and audio probably should be kept in their own partitions, again, to make locating them and backing them up easier.

Yes, this is MORE WORK than simply "dumping everything into your home folder", but again, my Macs don't suffer the "slowdowns" that others experience after indiscriminately clogging up their drives.

If you want the benefits, you have to do the work.
 
After two years of jus installing all kinds of apps I figured the only thing that woukd make my iMac fast again was copying the most important data (iphoto library, itunes library and documents) to on of my three external hard drives and just do a clean install and copy the files back and reinstall only the most necessary programs (ilife, iwork, adobe webdesign package and browsers, that's all).

Now it's fast again. Once photoshop is loaded into your RAM (when you've opened it once after booting) it opens within seconds, instead of minutes.

Installing all kind of software to make your mac faster doesn't work. Clean install does, plus all of my videos and downloaded content are on one of the hard drives.
 
arjen92 said:
After two years of jus installing all kinds of apps I figured the only thing that woukd make my iMac fast again was copying the most important data (iphoto library, itunes library and documents) to on of my three external hard drives and just do a clean install and copy the files back and reinstall only the most necessary programs (ilife, iwork, adobe webdesign package and browsers, that's all).

Now it's fast again. ...
Click to expand...
MacOS X is not Windows 98. Therefore, it makes no sense to apply Windows 98 solutions in the hope that you will fix a perceived problem in MacOS X. I note that no one has yet posted one of the most effective things that you can do to speed-up your Mac. That is to ensure that you have at least 10% (or is it 15%) of your hard drive capacity is available as free space. This will allow your UNIX-based virtual memory system to operate properly. It was freeing-up hard drive space that sped-up your system; the other stuff that you did had no affect and was a waste of time.
 
MisterMe said:
MacOS X is not Windows 98. Therefore, it makes no sense to apply Windows 98 solutions in the hope that you will fix a perceived problem in MacOS X. I note that no one has yet posted one of the most effective things that you can do to speed-up your Mac. That is to ensure that you have at least 10% (or is it 15%) of your hard drive capacity is available as free space. This will allow your UNIX-based virtual memory system to operate properly. It was freeing-up hard drive space that sped-up your system; the other stuff that you did had no affect and was a waste of time.
Click to expand...

Well excuse me for reinstalling my OS. 1) reinstalling on a mac is a breeze. Copying the files took some time, but placing them back went faster.
2) if you've installed all kinds of crap (with installers etc) you can't just drag and drop them, they've got their bits and pieces installed everywhere. Final Cut Pro for example, leaves render files, auto save files etc on several places (especially when you change them some times). By copying the files I only needed and afterwards erasing the entire disk, I could be sure that all the files I didn't need were deleted.

And 3), do you really think my hard drive is full when I've got 2TB of memory. I only use it for my music library (80 GB) and iPhoto library (60 GB), 10 GB for documents and some more for the system and software. So yes, the internal hard drive (500 GB) did have enough space. I'm sorry it didn't fix it.

And your BTW right about enough hard drive speed. But you're not right (altough you're not saying it, you're implying it) that it fixes everything.

To me, a clean system runs the fast.
 
arjen92 said:
Well excuse me for reinstalling my OS. 1) reinstalling on a mac is a breeze. ...

To me, a clean system runs the fast.
Click to expand...
Indignant comments notwithstanding, most of what you said is nonsense. Performance is hurt by executable tasks. Most of the stuff installed on your System is not executable. It just takes up space. You as a user can do ill-advised things to mess up your System. You may even place your System in such a state that it is difficult to undo. As a general proposition, however, wiping your System as a performance improvement measure makes as much sense as nuking your house to clean-out your closet.
 
MBX said:
Hey,
anybody know of a way to make your Mac snappy again, as if just brand new?

I remember that even if i migrate all my apps/ files to a brandnew Mac it's always so snappy but after a while it just takes forever to load things on startup and to launch applications.

I tried OnyX and quick defragmentation with iDefrag but none of these helped really.

Does anybody know of a tool that really optimizes Snow Leopard as if brand new?

Thanks
Click to expand...

I have a early 2009 MBP 17" with 8 gb Ram, and I still consider it running as new. I do the following periodically (every 3-4 months) to keep it that way:

1. Use Onyx and/or CleanMyMac to get rid of junk

2. Use Super Duper to clone my internal to an external drive. I then reformat my internal drive and re-clone it (using SuperDuper) from my external. This is a very effective way of defragging your internal. In spite of what some say, if you are working with a lot of files over 20MB in size (ie graphics applications, etc) your Mac will eventually need defragmentation. I have JPEGS of before and after data if anyone is interested.

3. After recloning my internal, I use DiskWarrior to rebuild my directory, correct any file errors, and repair permissions.

Like I said, the above works for me. I first did this after 7-8 months of owning my mac, as it appeared to get sluggish. It has been running great since.
 
MBX said:
Does anybody know of a tool that really optimizes Snow Leopard as if brand new?
Click to expand...

Yes: Install Linux on your Mac. You won't believe how fast your computer can be.

(Sorry, couldn't resist. But it's true anyway. :)
 
MisterMe said:
I note that no one has yet posted one of the most effective things that you can do to speed-up your Mac. That is to ensure that you have at least 10% (or is it 15%) of your hard drive capacity is available as free space.
Click to expand...

Really?

2nd reply:

Bisz said:
Free up hard drive space if you are below 20% of disk capacity.
Click to expand...

You've got some good things to say, but if you want people to take you seriously, you should probably read the thread before posting.
 
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