Advice on updating OS X Needed

Hey guys...

I'm primarily a user, not a technician. My iMac 24" Intel Core 2 Duo 2.8GHz is a few years old and I'm running OS X v.10.6.8. I have 6GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM installed, the unit has a 500 GB internal HDD. I have a 1TB Lacie Firewire 800 as my backup drive. My root drive has 79 GB free. I recently installed a Networked WD My Book Live 2TB, and I'm in the process of moving a lot of my graphic images files slowly over to the network drive.

I have Adobe CS4 Installed and although I primarily use Photoshop, I'm trying to learn AI in between the raindrops.

So lately, I'm noticing the spinning ball so much that I have to wait 30 seconds or so when I'm saving a file and trying to type its name. A friend of mine said that I should install Mountain Lion and a lot of the delays I'm seeing will go away. So thats easy to try, but in the case that it DOESN'T solve the problem, am I going to need to do a fresh install of the OS X Mountain Lion where its like reformatting the HDD in a PC is the only way to speed it up? And if that is the case... is there some sort of procedure to back up all my email, pictures, graphic files, addresses, correspondence, web site URLs, forum links and whatever so that I'm not starting totally from scratch? Likewise, what do I do about all my online applications that I've acquired in the past 4 years. Adobe CS4 and Corel Painter... I have my disks so that's not a problem... but what about all the small stuff?

Any advice is appreciated.

Mike

drgrafix said:

So lately, I'm noticing the spinning ball so much that I have to wait 30 seconds or so when I'm saving a file and trying to type its name.

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Please read a couple of the links in my signature (Beach Balls and Speedup)…there are some suggestions there that may help.

- Nick

Before upgrading to ML. First determine what is going on your machine. Free up at least 20% of your internal HDD space by moving stuff to the external HD.

Next, run Activity Monitor and look at the CPU and memory usage. If your are pegging the CPU with your normal activity or using all of your free memory, then ML isn't going to make your CPU faster or give you more memory than you have.

Now while ML is a cheap upgrade at $19.99. Realize that support for PowerPC (or universal) applications ended after Snow Leopard. So not sure if Adobe CS4 works with ML or if you need to upgrade that, and the same is true of other applications you have. Upgrading Adobe and other software might end up costing substantially more..

Bo I need a Fresh Install?

I'm running a iMac 24 Intel 2.8GHz with 6GB RAM, 500GB HDD with 79GB free. My backup drive for Time Machine is a 1TB Lacie 800 FireWire, and I just recently installed a WD My Book Live 2TB network drive. I do a LOT of graphics work (Adobe CS4 & Corel Painter) that involves images and artwork. I'm slowly moving stuff over to the network drive to free up more space on the mac's root drive.

Currently using OS X 10.6.8 and a friend of mine said I might see a performance improvement if I installed the latest OS X version _over_ my existing OS X. My mac is getting sluggish, to the point where I can't have multiple windows open without seeing the notorious spinning beach ball every time I try to save a file.

Bigger question is if a totally fresh install with a re-format of the HDD is my only (?) option, is there a method to copy or save all my data, smaller apps where I don't have the install DVDs? Also all my mail, correspondence, links, forums, and all that? Or do I have to hand list everything and write down any pertinent information?

This kind of reminds me of when I had a PC, and Windows would get so bogged down, that the only way out was to reformat the HDD. I'm hoping maybe there's an in-between where I can delete the OS and then buy a real install DVD at the Apple Store so I just slip it in and it wipes the traces of the OS while installing the new OS. Or is that wishful thinking?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Mike

Threads merged - Please don't cross post the same question into multiple forums.

drgrafix said:

My mac is getting sluggish, to the point where I can't have multiple windows open without seeing the notorious spinning beach ball every time I try to save a file.

Click to expand...

Did you explore what I suggested above?

drgrafix said:

This kind of reminds me of when I had a PC, and Windows would get so bogged down, that the only way out was to reformat the HDD.

Click to expand...

Usually with a Macintosh computer…you do not have to reformat the HD or reinstall the OS. Try what I already suggested…read the links in my signature.

drgrafix said:

I'm hoping maybe there's an in-between where I can delete the OS and then buy a real install DVD at the Apple Store...

Click to expand...

What do you mean by a "real install DVD"? What have you been using up to this point?

- Nick

Note: I am on the extreme end of this issue.

You have 15% free space on your internal drive - I would guess that is your major issue - "assuming" there is no problem with the hard drive. I would be totally surprised if you were not having the spinning beach ball quite often. I notice my system begin slowing down at 35% free space - and that does not matter which OS I'm using - Windows, OS X or Linux.

My personal recommendations are to maintain 40% free space on any partition that you are running your operating system from - and no, I don't care whether it's a 250 GB drive or a 2 TB drive - if it's a standard mechanical drive - 40% free space is the goal. Data only drives - I keep at 15-20% minimum.

Also, with a drive that full, once you move some of that data to another drive, you'll definitely benefit from a defrag of the drive. Once you have a drive that full, as good as OS X is at keeping your files defragged, it is does nothing regarding free space on the drive. Your files are going to be spread out from one end of the drive to the other, and likely not much contiguous free space for writing new files. I use iDefrag and have seen boot times cut from 50-60+ seconds to 25-28 seconds on my older MBP along with a much faster feel of the OS. Wouldn't even try doing a defrag until you get it up to 25% free space minimum.

bobtomay said:

Note: I am on the extreme end of this issue.

You have 15% free space on your internal drive - I would guess that is your major issue - "assuming" there is no problem with the hard drive. I would be totally surprised if you were not having the spinning beach ball quite often. I notice my system begin slowing down at 35% free space - and that does not matter which OS I'm using - Windows, OS X or Linux.

My personal recommendations are to maintain 40% free space on any partition that you are running your operating system from - and no, I don't care whether it's a 250 GB drive or a 2 TB drive - if it's a standard mechanical drive - 40% free space is the goal. Data only drives - I keep at 15-20% minimum.

Also, with a drive that full, once you move some of that data to another drive, you'll definitely benefit from a defrag of the drive. Once you have a drive that full, as good as OS X is at keeping your files defragged, it is does nothing regarding free space on the drive. Your files are going to be spread out from one end of the drive to the other, and likely not much contiguous free space for writing new files. I use iDefrag and have seen boot times cut from 50-60+ seconds to 25-28 seconds on my older MBP along with a much faster feel of the OS. Wouldn't even try doing a defrag until you get it up to 25% free space minimum.

Click to expand...

OK... that sounds like a good start... move a lot of my images OFF the root drive and park them on the network drive. I started doing this and have moved about 30 Gigs so far. It is tedious because you can't just _MOVE_ data, you have to copy it to the new location then go back and move the original files to the trash, then empty the trash. Wish there was a smoother way to do this. I don't know how far I'll get this week, hopefully I can get down to 200-250 Gigs free in the root drive. I'm just under 400 Gigs used now. Once this is done, I guess a good defrag is in order. But while I understand your logic... isn't it a bit overkill to have a 500 GB drive and plan to limit its use to only 250 GB?

BTW, what do you mean "DATA ONLY DRIVES"?

Mike

Data only drives are drives that only contain files created by you or other users. They don't contain any OS X (system) files.

^^^ that - it is a drive or partition that does not contain a bootable operating system.

My goals are high, but I have set these "goals" in order to maintain an OS running at it's max operating efficiency - my "goal" is not to have one that still works. I want it to run as fast as it did on day 1. This is drastically easier to do with OS X than with Windows. A big part of It has to do with the nature of mechanical drives, not any particular operating system. Most of todays OSs will continue to function (barely) until you just about fill the drive.

On a 500 GB drive, my goal would be 175-200 GB free space.
I'm aware not everyone will be able to do that &/or can't afford to run out and buy a new drive "right now".
But, understanding that on a full drive, the OS is looking for free contiguous space to write new files (this includes the sleep file and virtual memory - each of which can take up several GBs of space), and that eventually those files will be written from one end of the drive to the other, with longer access times and longer read/write times at the tail end of the drive, and large files being written to multiple locations on the drive because there is not enough free space in any single location - all these things will cause the machine to slow down.

At 20-25% free space, some occasional maintenance and defrag should keep your machine running ok.
At 15% free space, I just can't handle the slow downs and am ready to throw the thing out the window, while others get use to them gradually over time and don't even realize anything is wrong until they fill the drive and start getting errors.

It's a game - what's acceptable behavior for you.
Once it reaches that line of unacceptable performance for you, and you need everything that's on the drive, it's time to upgrade to a larger boot drive

One thing I would note: those files you are moving over to the new WD drive - if that is the only place they are stored - you still have no backup of those files. The WD dies, so go your files.

OK... Data Drives are my external drives LOL. I thought maybe you were talking about certain type of content.

I have another Fantom 1TB USB drive that I intend to use as a backup to the network drive. More than enough room to handle all my graphics & photography.