Do iMacs slow down over time?

[jleonard]

Considering purchasing a new iMac. The Dell's I've had in the past begin to be sluggish after a few years (so I end up having to rebuild them...and sometimes that doesn't even work). In your truthful experience, has your iMac slowed down over time?

 

[hughvane]

Most computers will slow down over time, because their hard drives become cluttered. You can help maintain better working speed by doing regular maintenance, disposing of redundant files, and so on.

Startup and access speeds are also affected by the number of applications, utilities etc on the hard drive, and by any other optional or required functions.

[eg. I have a slower processor iMac that starts up faster than this eMac. Access time however is slower, but not a lot. The main reason is that the iMac has far less material on its hard drive.]

 

[chas_m]

Macs in high use CAN get slower over time, but do not require "rebuilding" or the drastic steps that PC users seem to have to do. I knew one guy that wiped his HD and copletely reinstalled Windows *every three months* for best performance. Mac people just laugh at stories like that.

Simple routine maintenance (again, much less than you'd find on a PC) will keep the Mac snappy for the whole of its useful life. My BlackBook is three years old this August, and just as fast as its ever been.

 

[trademark]

It's more of "hard drives get slowed over time", rather than a mac slows down over time.

 

[jerdog]

if one does find that their iMac has become sluggish over time, what sort of "maintenance" would you guys recommend?

 

[pigoo3]

if one does find that their iMac has become sluggish over time, what sort of "maintenance" would you guys recommend?

1. Repair permissions.
2. Don't let your hard drive get too full.
3. Don't keep 16 applications open at the same time!

- Nick

 

[smashbox]

^^^how do we repair permissions?

 

[pigoo3]

^^^how do we repair permissions?

Open "Disk Utility".

- Nick

 

[toMACsh]

I knew one guy that wiped his HD and copletely reinstalled Windows *every three months* for best performance.

I bet he also changes the oil in his car every three months, or 3,000 miles, whichever comes first.

It's more of "hard drives get slowed over time", rather than a mac slows down over time.

Exactly.

if one does find that their iMac has become sluggish over time, what sort of "maintenance" would you guys recommend?

New Mac with the specs to handle the new software, and the latest RAM-hog innovation on the internet.

 

[bobtomay]

I am one of those "guys" that reinstalled Windows around every 3 months for over 10 years. Every 6 months, not only did it get a clean install, but the case was opened up and every piece of hardware was pulled out for a good cleaning including all dust from the fins of the heat syncs. I'm not talking about taking a can of air to it, I'm talking about detailing here. That's along with building a new rig about every 12 -15 months. I also spent time turning off all services that were not required for playing my games and regular weekly defragging and other cleanup of the drive. Four hours of every Saturday were dedicated just to maintenace on my rig. I was very sensitive to slow downs.

OS X will slow down, but not like Windows does. It is not nearly susceptible to slow downs the way Windows is.

The first two years on my Mac, I installed and removed about 200 apps a year. No slow down. Try that on a Windows machine and see if you can get it to boot in less than 5 minutes after 100 apps in and out. My Mac still booted in under 30 seconds.

During that time I ran Onyx weekly for regular maintenance, including repairing permissions and clean up. I've since learned to do maintenance when I think about it or when I begin noticing the spinning beach ball. That is now about once every 2-3 months instead of once a week.

Those first couple of years my OS X partition never had less than about 60% free space. That helped. I move a lot of large files on and off the drive and have allowed my free space to dip below 40% and as low as 30% this past year. I noticed very small amount of slow down at about 40% free space and at 30% it became unbearable for me. Cleaning it back to 50% free space still didn't cut it for me, thus it was time to do my first defrag on my Mac - at 3 1/2 yrs old.

 

[hughvane]

Note bobtomay's reference to OnyX, jerdog and smashbox, it does a more thorough job than Disk Utility. It also does a heap of other useful things, but more of that later - if requested.
Titanium's Software • Download

 

[smashbox]

Note bobtomay's reference to OnyX, jerdog and smashbox, it does a more thorough job than Disk Utility. It also does a heap of other useful things, but more of that later - if requested.
Titanium's Software • Download

i appreciate the link but i've had this mac for less than 7 days and although i've imported about 60 or so gigs thus far from my external HD to the internal mac HD i don't think i need to clean the system up just yet.

think it's worth the download now just to have it for later use?

 

[bobtomay]

If you don't download it now, at least put yourself a bookmark for it.

 

[chas_m]

It's free, so I see no reason not to download it.

As Bob said (speaking of which, wow Bob now that's a story!), maintenance is not a big "thing" on the Mac. I run Onyx roughly ever quarter (once every three months); I repair permissions about as often. Every year or so I will do a clone/wipe/restore routine as a way of "defragging," but I test beta software all day and constantly add/delete app builds so I need this more than the average user.

The most important thing to do in terms of maintenance is as stated above: don't let the hard drive get too full, and make sure you have backups. That's really about it for typical users.

 

[DarkestRitual]

Yea, all computers can slow down if your hard drive becomes damaged or extremely fragmented (OS X and the HFS file format are far less susceptible to the latter). As already mentioned, regular maintenance and keeping 15-20% free hard drive space will keep your machine running at the same speed for years to come. This is of course assuming nothing about the system changes. Upgrades to operating systems on down the road may have more physical requirements for the hardware that may cause a performance decrease.