I am using Mac for last few years and found my Mac going slower and slower. When searched for fixes I found two methods to increase Mac speed.
1. Overclocking
2. Optimization - with tools like Clean my mac, Stellar speed up Mac etc.

Before using these methods I want know the benefits and side effects of both technologies. Your views please.

Hi and welcome to ehMac! Stay away from those type of paid optimization programs that are a disaster on your Mac. Instead use OnyX, a free program that has been around for years. Use the 'automation' feature and the default settings and it will clean up your machine and generally increase speed. Select the proper version of OnyX for your operating system and download it here:

Titanium's Software • Download (http://www.titanium.free.fr/download.php)

Sorry, but I now little about overclocking, but OnyX may do the trick without it. Be patient the first time you run OnyX, it can take 15 minutes or so to complete or even longer if the machine is really badly in need of optimization.

Sinc, Thanks for reply.

But, I am not worried about price at all. I know very well what I am going to get in turn of money - The 24 Hrs technical support, free updates, user manuals etc.

Please don't blame any application because they all have some specialisations.

What I want to discuss here is about technology to speed up Mac.

A big problem with overclocking is heat. Since most Macs other than the towers have limited internal space and are difficult to disassemble, adding more powerful cooling fans is next to impossible.

If you have been upgrading your OS but leaving the RAM where it was you may be RAM starved. While Apple claims Lion will run with 2GBs of RAM user reports here and elsewhere would indicate that anything less than 4GB will be very sluggish.

Also I would add if you haven't is run the Repair Disk Permissions it seems to me to help.

Overclocking will decrease the life of the CPU if you don't remove the heat.

how full your hard drive is can also be a huge factor. if you're running with 155GB of data on a 160Gb drive its going to suck no matter how fast your machine is

I'd echo the caution against overclocking because of the heat issues it is likely to cause. As mentioned cleaning out some space on the drive will generally do wonders to help performance, which is basically what onyx does by my understanding. In my experience I find that below about 10% free space on a hard drive and the performance degradation begins to become noticeable. I don't really have enough experience with sdd's yet but if they do suffer from this I haven't noticed it but even if it was slowing down significantly from a less full drive the Sdd is so much faster to begin with that I'm doubtful it would be noticeable.

In my experience I find that below about 10% free space on a hard drive and the performance degradation begins to become noticeable

it becomes noticeable waaaaaaaaaaaaaay before that. take a look at some drive benchmarks on somewhere like tomshardware.com..

Hard to give you a recommendation without knowing what Mac model you have.
I would stay away from overclocking - especially on a notebook Mac because they are not designed to get rid of the extra heat.

Also, whether or not you have the money to waste on commercial software which purports to speed up your Mac, be aware that there are a whole group of software vendors who sell malware disguised as utility software and whose uninstallers leave code behind on your machine. Not to mention that an unknown group of people in another country have your credit card information.

As mentioned, there are no magic bullets to speeding up a Mac, and no 'speed up' software that does what you cannot do with free utilities.

The first and easiest method to reduce slowdowns on a Mac is to make sure you have enough RAM.

The second method is to make sure you are not running unnecessary programs and widgets in the background. More multitasking = less speed. Weed out widgets and helper applications which load on startup.

The third method is to make sure you have a fast hard drive -- replace a 5400 RPM drive with a 7200 RPM. If the drive is more than 50% full, delete files and defragment, or replace it with a larger one.

The fastest tracks are on the outside rim of a rotating drive -- a 750 GB drive with 140 GB on it is much faster than a 250 GB drive with 140 GB on it, it's just geometry. Also, newer, larger hard drives have much higher areal densities, so more data passes under the heads on each revolution of the platters.

Other things to consider - backup, reformat and reinstall with a fresh install of OSX. Yes, it takes a lot of time, but it can weed out accumulated junk and corrupted files.

Check the SMART status of your hard drive - if it is not passing the SMART Test, back up the data and replace the drive ASAP. (A failing drive can slow a machine down tremendously)

Boot the machine into Safe mode by doing a Restart and holding down the Shift key until the machine starts booting. It will take a LONG time to boot, but in that time it will do diagnostics and repairs to the disk catalogs. Once it is started up, reboot as normal.

Use OnyX to delete caches, but do NOT do anything in OnyX that you don't understand. This utility gives you the power to totally B0rk your machine.

If you are in the habit of storing a lot of files on the Desktop, then break your habit -- put the files into folders on your drive, most likely in Documents. If you need one click access to them from the desktop, put an alias to that folder on your desktop. If you have a gazillion files and folders on the Desktop, the Mac OS is forced to rewrite their icons every time you go to the Finder, which slows things down.

A clean install at least once every year or two is a great way to keep things fresh. I do it every 6-8 months. It keeps performance high and also prevents a lot of possible problems before they happen. After using any given install for more than a year or two you will see plenty of slowdown and what I like to call "bit rot".

As for overclocking.. don't. As for optimization apps.. stay away. OS X is best when left alone. You have Darwin (BSD) running things so just leave it in Hexley's hands. It has all the things it needs to stay healthy for a long while. If you have a portable or system that is never on all night then running the scripts every 2-4 weeks would be a good idea. Onyx is a good tool for that.

Re: those commercial apps that claim to "speed up" your Mac...please read the user reviews.

Download Stellar Speed Up Mac for Mac - Remove unwanted data and improve performance. MacUpdate.com (http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/36699/stellar-speed-up-mac)

Onyx is FREE and does more (and does it reliably). Please don't waste your money (or your time).

As CanadaRAM says, without system info, including things like the amount of free hard disk space, what OS you're running, what apps you typically use, etc. etc., it's very hard to give useful advice. Please let us know all that, and we can probably be a lot more helpful.

Hard to give you a recommendation without knowing what Mac model you have.
... ... ...
The third method is to make sure you have a fast hard drive -- replace a 5400 RPM drive with a 7200 RPM. If the drive is more than 50% full, delete files and defragment, or replace it with a larger one.

The fastest tracks are on the outside rim of a rotating drive -- a 750 GB drive with 140 GB on it is much faster than a 250 GB drive with 140 GB on it, it's just geometry. Also, newer, larger hard drives have much higher areal densities, so more data passes under the heads on each revolution of the platters.

Other things to consider - backup, reformat and reinstall with a fresh install of OSX. Yes, it takes a lot of time, but it can weed out accumulated junk and corrupted files.

Just to reinforce CanadaRAM's comment, my mid-2007 24" iMac's HD failed last year and I replaced it with a 1TB 7200 drive and partitioned it and used CCC to clone back my 10.5.8 backup and later ended up with SL 10.6.8 on the lower (inner) partition which became my main boot volume.

Then I realized that SL was on the slower inner partition and I finally got around to flip-flopping them using CCC to copy each volume and then used CCC to copy back but to the other partition so SL was now on the upper and faster partition and the speed difference has been amazing.

Maybe CCC also did some defragging during the copying but I'm a happy user with a fast older iMac.

I also use Monolingual, READ its on-line manual before using, to remove all the surplus stuff that so many installers and updaters keep insisting the surplus language and code crap should be installed that my HD just does NOT need and saves the OS from having to maintain them all .

I really appreciate the valuable points given by all the participants.

Yes, I accept that with every OS update we should also update the RAM also.
Also, the speed of hard drive matters and make a difference.

But, don't you think, with every OS upgrade increasing RAM and getting new HD is little pinching.
Do you carve the maximum out of your machine?
How about optimizing the current drive to make it perform at its best.?


Ideas please...

I think we are all missing something obvious here.

I don't know about the rest of you guys, but with normal (that is to say, VERY VERY LIGHT) maintenance and regular updates to the OS, my machine runs FASTER every year, not SLOWER.

There is likely something else going on there (like maybe a failing HD) that all the "solutions" posted so far (apart from the normal maintenance things like OnyX that Sinc suggested) won't address.

It depends on the machine but when I've wanted to speed up my Macs (granted I wasn't having any real issues) I increased my RAM and installed a SSD drive. My desktop has a a SSD boot drive with a regular hard drive for the user folders, while my MacBook pro just has a SSD drive since I don't need much storage.



Sent from my iPhone

Yes, I do favour the SSD over HDD. From the above discussions, the ways I found to speed up Mac are:

1. Re-install OS every year
2. Use SSD rather than HDD
3. Increase RAM
4. Optimize - using software like onyx, Stellar drive defrag, iDefrag etc.

Which one do find the most feasible.

I was told never to try and defrag an SSD (I have an OWC 480GB SSD), but I do use OnyX which helps keep the speed high on my MBP.

Anyone else told not to defrag a SSD?

I was told never to try and defrag an SSD (I have an OWC 480GB SSD), but I do use OnyX which helps keep the speed high on my MBP.

Anyone else told not to defrag a SSD?

You were told correctly. Not only do sdd's not need to be defraged, doing so regularly will decrease the sdd's lifespan as defragging uses a large number of read write cycles which are limited on a sdd drive. The chips that make up the drive can only be read/written to a certain number of times before they will begin to
fail. Most estimates that I've seen are that the average user should see at least 5 years out of a drive, and more out of newer drives that are designed with several strategies for dealing with this.

I don't know if defragmenting drive reduces drive's life. But, I am sure it increases the read/ write speed of OS.

Optimization is always preferred over upgrading hard drive.

I don't know if defragmenting drive reduces drive's life. But, I am sure it increases the read/ write speed of OS.

Optimization is always preferred over upgrading hard drive.

You don't specify if you are referring to solid state drives or hard drives, which is the key point of the whole discussion here...

Solid state drives absolutely do not need to be defragged, the only thing the extra read/write cycles will do is shorten your drives longevity.

As sdd don't have spinning platters, they can access data from anywhere on the drive and see little difference in speed between random read/write speeds and sequential read/write speeds. There is actually longevity enhancing features built into these drives that attempt to level the read write cycles across all the chips on the drive evenly by moving frequently accessed data around the drive to provide wear leveling. This feature is dependends on the two previously mentioned facts resulting from not having to read data off spinning platters...

I don't know if defragmenting drive reduces drive's life. But, I am sure it increases the read/ write speed of OS.

Optimization is always preferred over upgrading hard drive.

Hmmm... I did a backup/copy back flip-flop on my 1TB WD Black of the original 10.5.8 on its outer partition and the 10.6.8 on it inner partition using CCC last month, and the speed increase was amazing when running SL now booted and running on the outer 500GB partition.

And then with all the various defragmenting topics, on a whim I downloaded two Mac defragmenting apps and ran them in their trial mode.

Both stated that my WD drive had between 125-215 defragged files at most!!! Not exactly a performance issue!!

And yes I try and leave my Mac running 24hr, monitor sleeps but HD Energy Saving set to "never".

About the same amount of energy used as a decent incandescent night light!!

Hmmm... I did a backup/copy back flip-flop on my 1TB WD Black of the original 10.5.8 on its outer partition and the 10.6.8 on it inner partition using CCC last month, and the speed increase was amazing when running SL now booted and running on the outer 500GB partition.

And then with all the various defragmenting topics, on a whim I downloaded two Mac defragmenting apps and ran them in their trial mode.

Both stated that my WD drive had between 125-215 defragged files at most!!! Not exactly a performance issue!!

And yes I try and leave my Mac running 24hr, monitor sleeps but HD Energy Saving set to "never".

About the same amount of energy used as a decent incandescent night light!!

It all depends on which files are fragmented. I doubt a fragmented music or video files really have much of a performance hit (since I'm pretty sure they read ahead and cache things slightly ahead of time etc); but say a fragmented virtual machine or app itself might have a bit of a performance hit. I'd assume if say Safari was fragmented to the gills... Then having to look around at various history, cache, plug ins, and little elements of the program could also effect performance.

Two ideas of "what might be" in my opinion.

I use Prosoft Drive genious to repair my drives and repair disk permissions.
once and a while like in a blue moon I use cocktail - if I need caches removed..

as for SSD- I use them. DO NOT optimize or defrag it, doing so will damage the drive.. but any respectable drive program will tell you so - in Drive Genious - if you click on the defrag icon - it will say you have an SSD -- do not do it, or expect damage.

my 2 cents. [ actually - I should start saying - a nickel for my thoughts -since the penny is no more. ] :)

but if you do want to optimize your info.. Mirror it to an external Hard drive.
then optimize the external and reformat your SSD [ remember reformatting also reduces lifespan of SSDs as well] and mirror your data back..
maybe every 2 years. [ personal prefs at that point ]

You don't specify if you are referring to solid state drives or hard drives, which is the key point of the whole discussion here...

Solid state drives absolutely do not need to be defragged, the only thing the extra read/write cycles will do is shorten your drives longevity.

As sdd don't have spinning platters, they can access data from anywhere on the drive and see little difference in speed between random read/write speeds and sequential read/write speeds. There is actually longevity enhancing features built into these drives that attempt to level the read write cycles across all the chips on the drive evenly by moving frequently accessed data around the drive to provide wear leveling. This feature is dependends on the two previously mentioned facts resulting from not having to read data off spinning platters...

Ok! you may be right that SSD do not require to be defragged but the cost of upgradation also needs consideration.
I still support optimizing drive instead of switching to SSD.