Advice/Tips for new Macbook Pro?

Hey guys. I'm not new to Macs, or this forum, (made a new account recently) and I've owned an iMac for a while now, but just splurged and ended up buying a 15" MacBook Pro new from my local Apple Store. It's got the i5 processor, and runs everything (including games such as World of Warcraft) very quick. I love it.

My only concern was that eventually it will end up slowing down like my iMac did after a few years, which I guess happens to all computers. Basically I'm looking to maximize my performance for as long as I can, and I was looking for any tips to help me keep my Macbook fast. I'm trying to cut down on my downloads and installs, but I'm afraid that in a few months, I'll be back to lagging on World of Warcraft, and taking longer to open applications.

Any advice/tips on how to keep it running fast and smooth would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

To keep it running fast and smooth,

Number 1: and this is the biggie - do not allow the system partition to go below 40% free space. For most folks, (many just do not recognize their machine slowing down) this number could go down to 15-20% free space. And there are some that will disagree with me on this. For myself, it became unbearable at 30% free space. For those of us that are use to maintaining an optimal working machine - the amount of free space is the number one key. And yes, I don't care what size drive you have. So, if you have a 1TB system partition, you're going to make sure it never goes below 400GB free space.

Number 2: Use the Automator tab in Onyx once every 2-3 months or so.

That's really it for a couple of years.

The number of installed and deleted apps does not affect the speed of the machine. I've installed and deleted as many as a couple hundred apps a year without any noticeable slow down in OS X. But, I kept over 60% free space during that time.

If you tend to move a lot of large files on and off the drive - I move around plenty of 1GB to 7GB+ files on and off my Mac (and move around plenty of files in the 25-30GB+ size on my Windows machines) - and you're hitting that 30-50% free space range, you may need to defrag the free space after awhile. Took me 3 1/2 years before a defrag became worthwhile. It was 3 years before I somehow didn't pay enough attention and let it slip below that 40%.