Spinning ball/wheel thingy

[Peter Franks]

I got down to only 2GB free on MBP (2.3 GHz dual-core i5, 320 GB hard drive, 4 GB RAM)
Assumed a clear out would do the trick, so copied 50GB on to an external, but I still have this when I open anything and everything these days. Is there something else that needs doing after the 50GB clear out, like the old days of defrag. I know people say you don't need that on a Mac etc. etc., but just deleting 50GB to free up space on this won't automatically speed it up will it, because it's not really gone... if you know what I mean. It's not gone till overwritten is it. Any ideas on this one? Is there something that needs a kick after 4 and a half years to speed up to how it used to be?

Thanks

 

[WarcraftWidow]

Add more RAM and or change out the hard rice for an SSD.

 

[Peter Franks]

So passed it then, for getting it back to 4 years ago ya think

 

[WarcraftWidow]

You could try a fresh install of OS X but more than likely hardware upgrades would be your best bet.

 

[Peter Franks]

Thanks, Is it worth changing up the MBP after nearly 5 years old, or is it still good enough to upgrade at a smaller cost?

 

[WarcraftWidow]

Depends on what you use it for, but yes. The non-retina MBP have easily user replaceable RAM and hard drives. There are lots of tutorials around on how to do it (OWC has some even if you don't buy from them).

 

[Peter Franks]

you mean I can do it myself?! that should be interesting

 

[Peter Franks]

For the record deleting 50GB makes no difference at all to the OS

 

[satcomer]

Run the free application EtreCheck and run it. The program will print out a text document of a System Report with Applications also listed. It then will also show programs the are not compatible with your version of OS X. Highlighting them will show you the path to manually delete the out of date kecks and plugins. If you have to delete a launch agent or service then reboot to stop that service.

 

[WarcraftWidow]

you mean I can do it myself?! that should be interesting

Yes. You can do it yourself. On the non-retina MacBooks the RAm and hard drive is designed to be user replaceable. I have a retina MBP now but I've done both before. It's easy and really just takes a few minutes.

 

[Peter Franks]

Yes. You can do it yourself. On the non-retina MacBooks the RAm and hard drive is designed to be user replaceable. I have a retina MBP now but I've done both before. It's easy and really just takes a few minutes.

It's the bit after I've fitted it that scares me slightly. The same as not updating from Snow Leopard because of all the programmes I'll lose. This will require running OSX from scratch presumably?

Run the free application EtreCheck and run it. The program will print out a text document of a System Report with Applications also listed. It then will also show programs the are not compatible with your version of OS X. Highlighting them will show you the path to manually delete the out of date kecks and plugins. If you have to delete a launch agent or service then reboot to stop that service.

Thanks for this, I'll give that a go... sounds just what I need at the mo

 

[WarcraftWidow]

It's the bit after I've fitted it that scares me slightly. The same as not updating from Snow Leopard because of all the programmes I'll lose. This will require running OSX from scratch presumably?

You can install it from scratch. But if you get a USB hard drive enclosure you can put the SSD in it temporarily and use something like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to create an exact image of the existing hard drive onto the SSD. Then you install the SSD into the MBP and it should boot up just correctly (just much much faster). Then you can put the old hard drive into the enclosure and use it as a backup drive or to store extra stuff.

 

[CoastalOR]

You can install it from scratch. But if you get a USB hard drive enclosure you can put the SSD in it temporarily and use something like Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper to create an exact image of the existing hard drive onto the SSD. Then you install the SSD into the MBP and it should boot up just correctly (just much much faster). Then you can put the old hard drive into the enclosure and use it as a backup drive or to store extra stuff.

OP: CAUTION, Super Duper does not clone the Recovery partition. Use Carbon Copy Cloner 4 (CCC)so you will have both your System and Recovery on the new SSD drive. CCC has a 30 day free trial.

 

[Peter Franks]

Thanks guys