Macbook Pro maintenance

Who told you that Macs can't slow down? Over time, OS X, like much software, is likely to start showing slight issues and inconsistencies with speed and behaviour unless it's maintained very well. They're certainly smaller than on PCs, in my experience, but I feel like they're there.

There's nothing that breathes new life into a computer like a clean install of the OS. If you're really dissatisfied with the machine's performance then, aside from unlikely hardware failures, a new OS will have it running like it did on day one. Aside from that, Onyx is a powerful little utility for general maintenance and housekeeping. While not all of its features will speed up your computer, it's likely that it'll help make some difference. If you're willing to fork out money and time, getting a Solid State Drive installed will make the whole system feel far snappier. It never hurts to use Disk Utility to repair permissions and verify that the hard drive is working properly too. Although these are also unlikely to increase speed, it's good practice to ensure that your Mac is healthy.

On defragmentation - you're unlikely to need it. The majority of files in OS X are defragmented automatically and the larger ones that aren't are likely to be used less so shouldn't contribute much to general sluggishness. If you're using an SSD then fragmentation is never an issue regardless.

 

Just try to not install plenty of new apps every week and from time to time run Onyx...lets say twice a month or so...

I have same set of Apps for couple of years and comaperd to new (clean) onsrpallation there is no difference in speed. On the other hand I have a friend of mine who has plenty new apps installed just to test them out and then just removes them from Application folder. Also hes keeping a lot of photos and files on the desktop...and his mac is behaving noticeably slow compared to mine (same config).

And I really recommend an SSD to your machine as well as enough RAM!

 

Just delete any pics you don't want. Pictures can't leave anything behind when you delete them.

Moving an app to the trash is sufficient for most apps you want to delete.

 

May sound stupid, but when was the last time you restarted your MBP instead of just putting it to sleep? That can help sometimes. Also, have you tried repairing permissions?

You can see your RAM usage by going to Activity Monitor and near the bottom click on System Memory and see what your "Page outs" are after normal use. I think the general rule of thumb is if your page outs are approaching 1 GB you could benefit from a RAM upgrade. BTW, I just upgraded the RAM in my MBP and it is about as easy as it gets. It took longer to take the bottom cover off than it did to actually swap out the RAM.

And SSD's are nice.

 

Here's a good guide to determine if you need more RAM.

 

Most likely it's two 2GB sticks. To find out, go to the menu, then click About this Mac. then click More Information then System Report. In the memory section you'll see what the configuration is.

 

There are 2 slots for RAM in the 2011 MacBook Pro. You can install a maximum of 16GB, but rarely does anyone need that much. I would recommend 8GB of RAM, in the form of two 4GB sticks. You can buy an 8GB kit for around $40. You will definitely see an improvement.

On another note, defragmenting is important. I know that OS X automatically defrags files under 20MB but that often isn't enough. Try to find a 3rd party disk defragmenter that can also improve performance. Good luck!

 

I use iDefrag. It's reasonably priced and works very well. But God is it slow. Start defragging when you go to bed and it'll be done by the time you wake up, probably.

 

I use Drive Genius, but I got it with the MacUpdate 2012 bundle for $40, along with a ton of other software.

Check out my post here. Defragmentation really works, and while HFS's auto defrag kind of works, it doesn't tackle files larger than 20MB, and it doesn't seem to move files around to make a contiguous block - which is what you want.

Drive Genius works reasonably fast, but skip the disk check - it takes almost a day. The actual defragging takes 5-10 minutes for me, maybe 30 minutes the first time.

 

Apple's official information says 8GB. In reality it can take 16GB. It's not all that unusual for the manufacturer to list the "supported RAM" as a lower number than what the machine can actually accept. And Corsair memory is fine.

 

It helps to determine what's causing your slowdown first and then address that rather than just tossing solutions at your problem and hoping that you can fix it that way.

 

You don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Some remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space, with the risk of deleting something important in the process.

These apps will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space. Some of these apps delete caches, which can hurt performance, rather than help it, since more system resources are used and performance suffers while each cache is being rebuilt.

Many of these tasks should only be done selectively to troubleshoot specific problems, not en masse as routine maintenance.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software. Among other things, it has its own maintenance scripts that run silently in the background on a daily, weekly and monthly basis, without user intervention.

Five Mac maintenance myths​

With very few exceptions, you don't need to defrag on Mac OS X, except possibly when partitioning a drive.

About disk optimization with Mac OS X

To determine if you can benefit from more RAM, launch Activity Monitor and click the System Memory tab at the bottom to check your page outs. Page outs are cumulative since your last restart, so the best way to check is to restart your computer and track page outs under your normal workload (the apps, browser pages and documents you normally would have open). If your page outs are significant (say 1GB or more) under normal use, you may benefit from more RAM. If your page outs are zero or very low during normal use, you probably won't see any performance improvement from adding RAM.

Mac OS X: Reading system memory usage in Activity Monitor

If you're having performance issues, this may help:

Performance Tips For Mac OS X​

 

I agree, mine "feels" faster after the 16 GB. The big test for me was when I loaded up my VirtualBox VM (XP) and there was no perceptible difference in performance. Could I have gotten less than 16 GB? Sure, was it worthwhile to get only 8 GB? Not when one considers that there's a good chance I'd want to max out at some point. For what this kit cost, I couldn't see not going to 16 GB at this time.

 

Adding ram will only make it quicker up to the point of the amount of ram you needed. Since you started with 4gb and probably needed 6-7, there is no difference between 8 or 16gb of ram. The added benefit of 16gb of Ram is that if you ever decide to have 20 tabs of chrome open, your computer will not slow down.
If you want a real speed boost, get a SSD.