How do you optimise a Mac?

sharingan_sasuk

sharingan_sasuk

sharingan_sasuk

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MBP - 40 secs before Apple logo and spinning wheel

Hi all, one question that has always bugged me with Macs is how you optimise them. Now I know it isn't as necessary compared to say a Windows machine, and I've never had to do it on my 2010 MacBook Pro. But I have a friend with a slightly older MBP, and she says it feels slow compared to before.

With Windows, you have defragmentation programs, removal of startup applications, uninstalling unnecessary programs etc.. But what do you have on a Mac? Preferably stuff you don't have to pay for.

Other than backing up of files and reinstalling Mac OS X, I can't think of anything else. Any ideas would be great thanks! Regards
 
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Cocktail/Oynx type programs clear out caches, run clean up scripts and stuff and make a small difference, defragging requires paid software AFAIK (iDefrag) and makes absolutely sod all difference in my experience.

http://macperformanceguide.com/ might have some ideas to speed things up abit.

If she has the ability to reinstall then i'd do a TM backup and do that.

Took me ~3 hours to get back to exactly the same place with my MP when I swapped SSDs and reinstalled everything from scratch.
 
Its not really needed as you say but Onyx and CleanMyMac are two programmes I would recommend. I recently made the switch and I have been used to the tweaking programmes on Windows and felt lost in comparison but a reinstall would be best as Concorde stated.
 
Thanks for the replies so far guys. I've done some timings for startups and reboots, on both the original account and a test one I made up.

For both, it takes 1m20s to startup from the chime to desktop, and 35s if you restart. As it's the same for both, it doesn't look like applications, which I've already deleted from Login Items. I've done a PRAM reset, and also rebooted into Safe Mode once.

What I've noticed is that when it restarts, it loads the white screen with the Apple logo and spinning wheel right away. But when starting up, it's stuck on the white screen for a good 30 secs before it then displays the logo and spinning wheel! There's a few more things I'm gonna try, but other than a Time Machine backup and then full restore, I'm out of ideas :(

On my MBP at home, it never stays at the white screen that long!
 
What's the point in doing a Time Machine backup, then restoring? You'll be putting all the rubbish back on.

Put the documents, pictures etc on an external hard drive and do a clean install from the OS X DVD.
 
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