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Kappy's Personal Suggestions About OS X Maintenance
For disk repairs use Disk Utility. For situations DU cannot handle the best third-party utility is: Disk Warrior; DW only fixes problems with the disk directory, but most disk problems are caused by directory corruption. Drive Genius provides additional tools not found in Disk Warrior for defragmentation of older drives, disk repair, disk scans, formatting, partitioning, disk copy, and benchmarking.
Four outstanding sources of information on Mac maintenance are:
1. OS X Maintenance - MacAttorney.
2. Mac maintenance Quick Assist
3. Maintaining Mac OS X
4. Mac Maintenance Guide
Periodic Maintenance
OS X performs certain maintenance functions that are scheduled to occur on a daily, weekly, or monthly period. The maintenance scripts run in the early AM only if the computer is turned on 24/7 (no sleep.) See Mac OS X- About background maintenance tasks. If you are running Leopard or later these tasks are run automatically, so there is no need to use any third-party software to force running these tasks.
If you are using a pre-Leopard version of OS X, then an excellent solution is to download and install a shareware utility such as Macaroni, JAW PseudoAnacron, or Anacron that will automate the maintenance activity regardless of whether the computer is turned off or asleep. Dependence upon third-party utilities to run the periodic maintenance scripts was significantly reduced after Tiger. (These utilities have limited or no functionality with Snow Leopard, Lion, or Mountain Lion and should not be installed.)
Defragmentation
OS X automatically defragments files less than 20 MBs in size, so unless you have a disk full of very large files there's little need for defragmenting the hard drive except when trying to install Boot Camp on a fragmented drive. But you don't need to buy third-party software. All you need is a spare external hard drive and Carbon Copy Cloner.
Cheap and Easy Defragmentation
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You will have to backup your OS X partition to an external drive, boot from the external drive, use Disk Utility to repartition and reformat your hard drive back to a single volume, then restore your backup to the internal hard drive. You will use Carbon Copy Cloner to create the backup and to restore it.
1. Get an empty external hard drive and clone your internal drive to the
external one.
2. Boot from the external hard drive.
3. Erase the internal hard drive.
4. Restore the external clone to the internal hard drive.
Clone the internal drive to the external drive
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the left side dropdown menu.
4. Be sure the Block Copy button is not depressed or is ghosted.
5. Click on the Clone button.
Destination means the external backup drive. Source means the internal startup drive.
Restart the computer and after the chime press and hold down the OPTION key until the boot manager appears. Select the icon for the external drive and click on the upward pointing arrow button.
After startup do the following:
Erase internal hard drive
1. Open Disk Utility in your Utilities folder.
2. After DU loads select your internal hard drive (this is the entry with the
mfgr.'s ID and size) from the left side list. Note the SMART status of the
drive in DU's status area. If it does not say 'Verified' then the drive is
failing or has failed and will need replacing. SMART info will not be
reported on external drives. Otherwise, click on the Partition tab in the
DU main window.
3. Under the Volume Scheme heading set the number of partitions from the
drop down menu to one. Set the format type to Mac OS Extended
(Journaled.) Click on the Options button, set the partition scheme to
GUID then click on the OK button. Click on the Partition button and wait
until the process has completed.
Restore the clone to the internal hard drive
1. Open Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Select the Source volume from the left side dropdown menu.
3. Select the Destination volume from the left side dropdown menu.
4. Be sure the Block Copy button is not selected or is ghosted.
5. Click on the Clone button.
Destination means the internal hard drive. Source means the external startup drive.
Note that the Source and Destination drives are swapped for this last procedure.
Malware Protection
As for malware protection there are few if any such animals affecting OS X. Starting with Lion Apple has included built-in malware protection that is automatically updated as necessary.
Helpful Links Regarding Malware Protection:
1.Mac Malware Guide.
2. Detecting and avoiding malware and spyware
3. Macintosh Virus Guide
For general anti-virus protection I recommend only using ClamXav, but it is not necessary if you are keeping your computer's operating system software up to date. You should avoid any other third-party software advertised as providing anti-malware/virus protection. They are not required and could cause the performance of your computer to drop.
Cache Clearing
I recommend downloading a utility such as TinkerTool System, OnyX 2.4.3, or Cocktail 5.1.1 that you can use for periodic maintenance such as removing old log files and archives, clearing caches, etc. Corrupted cache files can cause slowness, kernel panics, and other issues. Although this is not a frequent nor a recurring problem, when it does happen there are tools such as those above to fix the problem.
For emergency cleaning install the freeware utility Applejack. If you cannot start up in OS X, you may be able to start in single-user mode from which you can run Applejack to do a whole set of repair and maintenance routines from the command line. Note that AppleJack 1.5 is required for Leopard. AppleJack 1.6 is compatible with Snow Leopard. (AppleJack works with Snow Leopard or earlier.)
Installing System Updates or Upgrades
When you install any new system software or updates be sure to repair the hard drive and permissions beforehand. I also recommend booting into safe mode before doing system software updates.
Backup and Restore
Having a backup and restore strategy is one of the most important things you can do to maintain your computer. Get an external Firewire drive at least equal in size to the internal hard drive and make (and maintain) a bootable clone/backup. You can make a bootable clone using the Restore option of Disk Utility. You can also make and maintain clones with good backup software. My personal recommendations are (order is not significant):
1. Carbon Copy Cloner.
2. Deja Vu
3. SuperDuper!
4. Synk Pro
5. Tri-Backup
Visit The XLab FAQs and read the FAQs on maintenance and backup and restore.
Always have a current backup before performing any system updates or upgrades.
Be sure you have an adequate amount of RAM installed for the number of applications you run concurrently. Be sure you leave a minimum of 10% of the hard drive's capacity or 20 GBs, whichever is greater, as free space. Avoid installing utilities that rely on Haxies, SIMBL, or that alter the OS appearance, add features you will rarely if ever need, etc. The more extras you install the greater the probability of having problems. If you install software be sure you know how to uninstall it. Avoid installing multiple new software at the same time. Install one at a time and use it for a while to be sure it's compatible.
Additional suggestions will be found in:
1. Mac OS X speed FAQ
2. Speeding up Macs
3. Macintosh OS X Routine Maintenance
4. Essential Mac Maintenance: Get set up
5. Essential Mac Maintenance: Rev up your routines
6. Five Mac maintenance myths
7. How to Speed up Macs
8. Myths of required versus not required maintenance for Mac OS X
Referenced software can be found at CNet Downloads or MacUpdate.
Feb 9, 2013 8:44 PM
Do you have a Mac that is gaining a few years on it and is not performing the same as you remember when you first bought it? While you might not be able to pinpoint it, you might simply notice programs take longer to launch, or you now have to wait a few extra moments for other tasks to complete.
Sometimes such slowdowns are caused by errors such as damage to the filesystem. Alternatively, over time as program and the Mac OS evolve, they will demand more out of a system, making it progressively difficult for an older system to keep up.
In many cases an older systems will have the horsepower to run the software you have installed, but are simply limited in capability by some of the configurable options that were available when you configured the system for purchase, primarily the amount of RAM and the hard drive type and size.
Your Mac’s RAM
One of the biggest factors determining the speed of a system is going to be the amount of RAM installed, so if your older Mac is sluggish then you might first take a look at your RAM usage and see if you can accommodate it. Open the Activity Monitor utility and check the Memory section to see if you are regularly using the full capabilities of your installed RAM.
In OS X before Mavericks, locate the pie chart in the System Memory section at the bottom of the Activity Monitor window under normal working conditions, and see if the combined blue and green sections of the chart are relatively small (about a quarter of the chart, or smaller).
Additionally, check the Page Outs, and Swap Used status listed next to the pie chart. If the Page Outs are high and regularly counting up, and the Swap Used is regularly in the hundreds of megabytes or gigabytes in size, then the system is regularly writing memory contents to the hard drive to free up physical RAM for other purposes.
In OS X Mavericks and later, locate the Memory Pressure chart in this same area of Activity Monitor, and see if the pressure level is small (about a third or less of the chart’s area, and green in color).
Unfortunately with the introduction of the Memory Pressure concept in Mavericks, Apple did away with its measurement of Page Outs; however, Swap Used is still there. In addition, you can check the “Compressed” level to see how much memory is being compressed by the system. If the compressed memory level is regularly about 20% of the amount of Physical Memory installed, then you should consider upgrading your RAM or reducing the number of programs you have open at any one time.
Speed Up Old Mac Pro To Game Free
The uses of Page Outs, Swap Space, and memory compression are automatic and optimize the system’s memory performance, but high levels they do indicate data is now being pumped through the lower-bandwidth parts of the system (the hard drive), and that with your uses you are simply running low on resources.In these cases, you can either look into purchasing more RAM, or changing your workflow to decrease the amount of RAM being used. These days 4GB-8GB of RAM is an average to have (with 8-16GB being necessary for more demanding tasks), which contrasts with only a few years ago where you could get away with using 2-4GB of RAM.
Your Mac’s hard drive
A second component of your Mac that may contribute to slowdowns is its hard drive, especially in instances where you are low on memory and the system writes memory contents to disk (the Swap Used and Page Out statistics mentioned above). RAM can be accessed and read at gigabytes per second, whereas mechanical hard drives are accessed at around 20-80MB per second, resulting in a major bottleneck for program functions. If the hard drive is further limited by filesystem damage, or by simply being full, then you may see an even greater degradation in performance.
Because of these factors, there are several approaches you can take to open this bottleneck:
Regularly check your hard drive for errors
Open Disk Utility every month or two and then select your hard drive in its sidebar, followed by clicking the Verify Disk button in the First Aid tab. If any errors show up when you do this, reboot into Recovery mode and then use Disk Utility there to fix the errors.
Keep at least 5-10% of your hard drive free
Since your system will use the hard drive as temporary storage for unused RAM contents, it is best to keep at least a small amount of it free by removing unused programs and data, or moving them to an external hard drive.
Upgrade your hard drive to an SSD
There is no way to prevent OS X from using the hard disk for memory management, but you can help the system by providing a faster storage medium to work with than the conventional hard drive, by replacing it with an SSD (even a cheaper one that is a generation or two old). Not only will this help speed up memory management routines, but will also help in the loading of the system, applications, and data.
You can consult with sites like iFixIt.com for guides on how to access and upgrade the hard drive on your specific Mac model.
Your OS and software
Finally, if you are using OS X 10.7 or 10.8 and your system will run OS X Mavericks, then consider upgrading it, especially if your Mac has around 4-8GB of RAM. While it may seem logical to keep an older version of OS X since newer versions may demand more out of your Mac, some of the ways newer versions of OS X will handle memory management and background processes may in fact show an increase in performance. For example, memory compression in OS X Mavericks will help make more RAM available to active programs, and its ability to freeze hidden applications that are not being used will allow the CPU to work on more relevant tasks.
If you upgrade your OS, the same goes for any programs you use, especially if you would like to ensure they work best with the new operating system’s services and features.
Beyond these three options, you can look into uninstalling programs you do not use (especially if they provide active system-monitoring or scanning features), and removing login items from your account to prevent unnecessary programs from opening when you log into your Mac.
Lastly, sometimes there might simply be a collection of problems with your account’s configuration that are numerous enough to make troubleshooting a frustration. To test this, try simply creating a new account and then logging into it, to see if the problems persist. If not, then consider migrating to the new account permanently and using it from now on.