How do you optimise a Mac?

[sharingan_sasuk]

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

 

[sharingan_sasuk]

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!

 

[sharingan_sasuk]

I'm trying to establish at the moment if it's the 'rubbish' that's causing it, or something else such as hardware, which is why I'm not ruling out a Time Machine restore at the moment.