Mavericks slowed my Mac

I have a MacBook Pro- Purchased in March 2011 - Processor: 2.2 GHZ Intel Core i7- Memory: 8GB , 1333 MHz DDR3 - With 70 GB free space out of 500.- Upgraded to Mavericks from 10.6.6 - I use my mac mostly for my design works, large file size to work with.
I am not claiming that I had a very fast running mac in the past (even after used Onyx) but since I have upgraded to Mavericks there are a lot more hourglass visits that I have ever remembered. AND I haven't even started to open up my files or working on my large files. Just for moving around and surfing so far.
Q#1 : Does it make sense that because Mavericks is offering so many different things, always something is running in the background and that causes it to slow down?
Q#2 : Can I go and purchase the previous version of iOS and downgrade to it?
NOTE: My location is disabled, and I absolutely do not like to use my Mac for the iMap experience so I really don't care about iMap, key chain, find my Mac or none of those other features. JUST faster iOS.

Thanks

Q#1. Y & N

Q#2. Your Mac does not and cannot run iOS. iOS is the operating system for Apple's iDevices. Your Mac runs OS X.


The biggest reason for your machine running slow is due to not having enough free space at only 14% free and it is very likely the free space is highly fragmented. When you installed ML, it was installed to the tail end (the slowest part) of the drive and likely was spread around all over the place due to not enough contiguous free space. So now, even while launching the OS, the drive is working overtime just to go find all the bits and pieces that are likely spread from one end of the drive to the other.

"Assuming" you don't have a bunch of misc data you want to delete from the drive...
First thing you need to do "right now" if you haven't already done it, is back up your drive.

Second, have to recommend you replace the drive in your MBP with a newer, faster, larger drive.

Defragging the drive with iDefrag would restore some of the speed back to your system.
e.g. it would probably restore your basic system speed - boot, initial startup, and application launch speeds. But, at 15% free space, you should expect to live with some beach balls.

bobtomay said:

Your Mac does not and cannot run iOS.

Click to expand...

Sorry. I knew it. My mistake.

bobtomay said:

Second, have to recommend you replace the drive in your MBP with a newer, faster, larger drive.

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Would you please give me more info as I have no idea what MBP is and where/how I should start this process. Is this something that can be done in the matter on hours at apple store? Which I don't think they do anything on the same day. OR something I can do on my own?

bobtomay said:

Defragging the drive with iDefrag would restore some of the speed back to your system.

Click to expand...

Can I do this even without replacing the MBP?

Q#1: Replacing the MBP will erase all my apps files? There are so many applications that I have on my machine but can't replace them if lost.

Q#2: Regardless of all of these good advices, is there a way to install mountain lion? I really don't like Mavericks. It feels as if I am working on a giant iPhone.

Thanks

MBP = MacBook Pro

Defragging the drive is something you can do on your own using just the iDefrag software Bobtomay recommended. You can do it to your existing drive without purchasing a new drive. If you go this route backup your data. .

If you can clear some space on the current drive and get the free space around 15 - 20% that should help. If you decide to purchase a larger drive you can preserve your existing setup by "cloning" the contents of the old drive to a new larger one. The software of choice for that task seems to be Carbon Copy Cloner.

Thank you.
I started backing up my stuff on an external drive and CrashPlan, that should give me the 15% free space. If replacing my drive with a larger one, still giving me a significant increase in speed, I'll do it but since I don't know how to install it, or where to buy it and most important in what spec, would you please point me to a place BESIDE apple store to help me with this? I do have apple care on my Mac but not sure if this is something that they take care of or not.

Aim for 20-25% free space. 15% not enough. It also may pay to check the model number. i7's were released in upper 2.8GHz and +3GHz, not 2.2GHz.

You can find installation videos on this page. The next page will allow you to select videos covering hard drive installation, memory,etc. They are also quite helpful selecting replacement drives.

Other vendors will also have hard drives that work as long as the size is correct. The installation will be the same no matter who manufacturers the drive.

Thank you all. I'll check all of these. I moved everything I could and I am not getting to 25% free.
But I still have my main question unanswered: CAN I go back to previous operating system by simply downloading and Installing the MLion?

Thanks

I'll repeat in more clear terms. The problem you have stated is not a problem of Mavericks, it is a problem that will not go away by installing ML nor even 10.6 over the top of 10.9.

No, you cannot downgrade by "simply" downloading and installing a lower version of OS X.
You would need to do a clean install which involves:

Download 10.8 - I have no idea if it is still available for sale in the App store or not and can't tell here since it shows up for me in my Purchased items.
You'll need to get a 8 GB flash drive
Download Lion Diskmaker and use it to create an installation disk of 10.8 on the flash drive.
Backup your computer with Time Machine or Carbon CopyCloner (Hopefully, you already have one of these backups)
Then, boot the machine with the flash drive - repartition the hard drive in your MBP - which will delete all data from it
Then install ML
At the end of the installation it asks if you want to restore your machine from another and you would answer yes and restore at that point from the backup you made previously.

The above would result in a faster machine because the system files would now be at the beginning of the drive. However, if you cannot get that drive up to 25% free space and keep it there, you will experience it slowing down and it won't take long if you are working on large project files.

You would get the same result by doing the above with Mavericks.
You could get about the same result by defragging the drive with iDefrag.

You should have a fast running machine, but you won't get there and keep it there unless you can keep a larger percentage of free space on the drive. I'm guessing you have a large amount of business files you need on your machine. Hence, my suggestion for a larger drive.

That MBP shipped with a 750 GB drive. Do you have a Windows partition or something using the other 250 GB? Do you need it?

QueenMe said:

Thank you all. I'll check all of these. I moved everything I could and I am not getting to 25% free.
But I still have my main question unanswered: CAN I go back to previous operating system by simply downloading and Installing the MLion?

Thanks

Click to expand...

You can go back to what your system came with why you would want to with things changing and requiring the latest OS to get the latest version of other apps not to mention more secure.
Another side note the way Mavericks handles memory over earlier versions makes it snappier or at least my 2009 MBP is.
In the end it will cause any OS to slow down if you don't have enough free space and minimum i would shoot for is 20%.

I agree with the above two post. The issue isn't Mavericks, the issue is your running out of space on the HDD your system is installed on.

May I suggest a USB3 or even better a TB2 external drive for you to move older projects over to so you can free up some drive space. This will improve your performance.

Despite the common assumption that each upgrade slows a computer down, OSX is not windows were your introduced to more bloat ware and tons of useless code that idly does nothing. So it is possible for an OS upgrade to improve performance. ;-)

Thank you Bobtomay. It was more clear. Thank to all of you guys for being this helpful.
#1: I understand what you guys are telling me. And I am sure you don't agree with me when I say I hate Mavericks anyway. Feels as I am working on a giant iPhone now. BUT that is beside the point here and we can talk about it in a different post.
#2: Apparently there is way too much involves in switching back to ML for a very little result and I am not ready or familiar with all the process to even start it. So Mavericks will stay anyway.
#3 : I have no idea why or how come you (Bobtomay) are telling me that this machine came with 750 GB. I don't have anything installed on it. As far as I know. and it always showed 500GB. Is it possible that Apple partitioned it without me asking for it?
How do I know/check? And how do I remove it without starting with a clean start. I just can't go that far.
#4: I have already filled 2 ex.drive . One that is 1TB and the other one is 500GB. I partitioned the 1tb to 2x500 and allocated 500 as time machine: I shall say : It was wrong as my time machine can not backup anything anymore due to shortage of space (yesterday) and deleted all my previous backups.
#5: I signed up with CrashPlan to upload all my stuff including a second backup of my ex. hard drives. But it takes for ever ( for the initial backup, is understandable) and I believe every time my mac goes to sleep due to inactivity, the hard drives go to sleep too because their light that should flash when communicating goes off.
#6: I will do the defragmentation as soon as I am done with this backup and freed some space to 25%.
#7: The main issue now is Where is my other 250? This is what I get when I go to more info under the apple:
MacBook Pro
17-inch, Early 2011
Processor 2.2 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1333 MHz DDR3
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 3000 512 M

Thanks

I was looking online at everymac.com at the specs for your Mac which indicated it shipped with 750 GB drives in the standard configuration. They could have it wrong. But, that's why I was wondering if maybe you had a boot camped Windows partition on it and if you were using it still or could get rid of it.

You can verify the drive size by opening Applications - Utilities - Disk Utility
Highlight the top item (the main drive, not the partition(s) listed below) on the left sidebar and go to the partition tab.
That will show you the full drive and the partition map of the drive.

For someone that is consistently using and creating large files for their work, it's going to be a little tough working on a balancing act to keep everything you need handy and at the same time keep up with the free space on the drive to keep the machine working at top speeds.

It's not going to be cheap, but in your case, it may be time to start considering an external thunderbolt setup with 4-8 TB of space in it for keeping your work files. Only problem, is you need two so that you have the external backed up also. Perhaps an external RAID thunderbolt for data redundancy?

For a Time Machine backup, the typical recommendation is a drive (or partition) that is double the size of your internal drive (or OS partition). As you can see, once it fills up, it starts deleting your older backups. The question then arises, do you need those older backups, or is a current backup all you require.

bobtomay said:

I was looking online at everymac.com at the specs for your Mac which indicated it shipped with 750 GB drives in the standard configuration. They could have it wrong.

Click to expand...

I followed on disk utility and it is 500 no partition, not 750. I purchased the applecare in April of 2011, not sure if it is still valid till April 2014 or not.
Anyway, it would make me super mad if they messed up my order....
What should I do now?

everymac.com is a respected and pretty accurate site.
Doesn't mean they can't get some detail wrong.
If you have a 500 GB drive - I have to believe everymac has this particular piece of data wrong before I would believe you rec'd less than the standard configuration if you purchased it new from Apple. We would have heard about that! believe you me.