Mac OSX Maintenance

With Microsoft Windows, the need to perform maintenance on it was required some times. Tasks like cleaning up the disk and defragmenting the hard drive were required every once in a while to try to keep the system running smoothly.

Does the Mac OSX Tiger OS have similar tools to help keep the computer running smoothly? Over time, does the computer slow down significantly as you use it more and more?

Back when I was using Windows XP, I found that eventually a need to reformat everything was needed every couple of months. Does anyone do this with their Mac's?

 

No. Defragmenting the hard drive is not necessary on the Mac. Another useful feature .

I reformat my MacBook every few months, not because it slowed down or things went buggy, but because I'm a clean freak . I install applications, use them twice and forget about them, so I just reinstall OS X instead of finding them and deleting them. Once again, you do not need to do this, the Mac will be fine, I just like to reinstall every few months.

Plus, the installation process is much faster and easier than Windows. Installation is fast, you don't need to activate OS X (no license key, no "An error has occured, please call Microsoft at (insert number here)"), the installation doesn't ask silly questions like Windows does.

 

Awesome. Music to my ears. Like you, I also install lots of stuff. Once in a while I go through the programs to see what I still use and don't use, and get rid of the ones I don't need anymore.

Does Mac OSX have a system registry, like that of Windows? Once in a blue moon I run a utility app that cleans up the Windows Registry (SysTweak's System Optimizer). I'd actually wish Microsoft did away with the registry in Windows Vista...

 

No, OS X does not have a system registry. Very annoying Windows "feature".

 

Groovy. One less headache to manage. Thanks Sam.

 

No problem, happy to help out .

By the way, I don't know if you know this but for many applications uninstalling is as easy as dragging the application to the Trash. However, this method leaves some files sitting around, like some ReadMe documents and preferences. Of course, they are harmless to your computer and will not in any way affect your performance (other than taking up a little bit of your hard drive), but if you want to get rid of an application altogether, I recommend (not two articles , but) AppDelete, a nice little free app for uninstalling applications. With AppDelete it finds files related to that app as well and uninstalls and deletes all files related to that application. Very useful!

Read more/download it here: http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/23149

 

Thanks again Sam!

 

I'm going to put the obligatory "be careful" disclaimer here.

If you're going to use AppDelete, make sure you have your Trash activated, and make sure you check the log and contents of the Trash after using it each time. AppDelete, among other things, does a simple filename search for anything related to what you're deleting and deletes those too. I know you'd hate to lose your "System" folder when you're trying to delete System Profiler 3.4x or something.

 

there is maintenance that os x does itself to clean up things here and there. the only problem is it does it automatically, and it cant be changed when. i believe its set for like 3am, so your mac will need to be on.

you can run the maintenance manually though, in terminal.
sudo periodic daily weekly monthly

you can do it like that, or just do the daily, weekly or monthly maintenance separately.

and then of course there is repair disk permissions through disk utility. i do those about once a week, or after installing a program. my macbook is still singing, with blazing fast 15 second boot times, and uber quick app loading.

 

MAC OSX NEEDS 15 SECONDS TO BOOT UP?

That beats Windows (any-version) hands down. Uber-tastic!

 

What does the "Secure Empty Trash" offer over the ordinary "Empty Trash"?

 

Mine's a bit slower , 20 seconds, but yes, its very fast.

 

It "shreds" the files (not sure what exact method it uses, zero-fill maybe?). Basically it makes it so the files are harder to recover. In any file system, when you "delete" a file, you're only deleting the entry in the master table - the data still remains in the sectors until they're overwritten by something else. This feature makes it so that the actual data is overwritten or something.

HFS+, in an effort to keep fragmentation to a minimum, actually does not write over sectors where data has been immediately deleted. This, in theory, should have the effect of slightly prolonging how often any data may remain on your HDD and still be recoverable though (in theory? never tested this ).

It takes Trash significantly longer to "securely" empty itself though.

 

I know of such methods on Windows, but wasn't sure of the architecture of Mac OS. I wonder how secure this method is on Mac OS compared to Guttman's method of deletion on Windows.