Reformat my Macbook, worth it?

[California King]

I've had my Macbook for a few years now and have noticed a big performance drop. For example, it would take me about 30 seconds to boot up and now takes me about 2 minutes. I've noticed with PCs in the past that a reformat or reinstallation of the operating system usually speeds things back up, so I was thinking of doing the same thing with my Mac.

I do have an external HDD so that I can just move all my media and documents over to that, then transfer it back when I reinstall OS X. Is it worth the time/effort though?

 

[MacMini2009]

Have you considered a RAM or hard drive upgrade?

 

[California King]

Have you considered a RAM or hard drive upgrade?

Not really. I have an old(ish) Macbook and I think it can only go up to 3GB (I currently have 2) and eventually will get a new Macbook. I mean, is 1GB more going to make a big difference?

 

[MacMini2009]

Not really. I have an old(ish) Macbook and I think it can only go up to 3GB (I currently have 2) and eventually will get a new Macbook. I mean, is 1GB more going to make a big difference?

It wont make a big difference, but a decent speed boost. I recommend getting a new hard drive like a 320GB Western Digital Scorpio Black or 500GB Western Digital Scorpio Blue.

 

[Kat King123]

yes! 100% it will help you reformat and reinstall before u upgrade anything. if you have a time machine backup you could just boot from your leopard disk and click restore from back up it will reformat and pretty much reinstall but u wont have to get any media back i do this every year to keep things tidy

 

[GlenL]

I've had my Macbook for a few years now and have noticed a big performance drop.

Have you tried using any of the free system utilities out there that claim to speed up old systems?

Also, if yours has an Intel chip, maybe wait until snow leopard comes out to see if upgrading helps clean up your system a bit.