UKC

My iMac with OS X El Capitain is staring to slow down a bit, especially when booting up. I've previously used OnyX on earlier versions of OS X, has anyone used the El Capitain version ? I know CleanMyMac 3 is an alternative, does anyone know how the two compare, or of any other alternatives ?

ps - I've already run disk utilities which said the computer was fine

In reply to Doug:

CMM is OK for cleaning out unwanted files, and Onyx better at the permissions and system side I think. Which iMac model do you have? I'm a bit of a numpty at these things but managed an SSD install in Dad's iMac a few weeks ago and it's fairly easy. Many iMacs take more memory than Apple suggest which can help too....

b

In reply to ben b:

Thanks, not sure which model I have, its fairly new (18 months ?) but I can't check as I'm now at work & its at home. Sounds like Onyx may be better for general 'housekeeping', which reminds me that I ought to run CCleaner on my office PC sometime soon.

In reply to Doug:

If it's 18 months it might be tough to put an SSD in (assuming it doesn't have one already). Best resources are everymac.com to work out which model you have and then iFixit.com to see if you can get in to it.

The 27' iMacs have user upgradeable RAM (easy) but the newer 21.5' ones don't.

b

In reply to Doug:

Is it because your disk is becoming fragmented? This is often the main cause for computers running slower over time.

In reply to ByEek:

Can mac's become fragmented?

I thought that they used a different file system which sort of eliminated fragmentation.

In reply to The Lemming:



You are quite right. I have read a few articles about it but none seem to give an authoritative answer. My feeling would be that all disks will become fragmented to some extent. I can see Apple not including a defragmenter as more of a political / marketing ploy than one that might be useful to its users.... unless you are suggesting that electricity runs slower in slightly older computers!

In reply to ByEek:
Don't think OS X suffers from fragmentation problems, at least not in the same as DOS/Windows based PCs. But OS X (& other UNIX based systems) suffer from file permissions (access rights) getting out of synch & needing repaired

In reply to The Lemming:


Empirically, disk access speeds certainly slow down once the disk gets close (95%?) to full.

In reply to The Lemming:


if you hit them hard enough they can.

In reply to Doug:


That should never happen. And, even it did, would have no effect on perceived speed: you can either access the files you want, or you can't.

In reply to Rob Parsons:
so why are there utilities (such Onyx) for 'repairing permissions' ? (genuine question, or does should never happen mean that it does occasionally due to other problems ?)

In reply to Doug:

I don't know: I don't what Onyx does; nor am I a user of OS X.

However I am very experienced with Unix in general, and my comment was really from that perspective.

The only (legitimate) reason I can think of for file permissions going bad is the installation of poorly-designed packages - so perhaps that's something Onyx checks for?

In reply to Rob Parsons:

It used to cause some weird things to happen, OSX itself could check permissions but it got removed in the last update.

To Doug, what spec is your iMac as I'm running it fine on an oldish MacBook Pro with an i7 cpu and 8 gig of ram.

In reply to Doug:

You are probably imagining it because you are used to using it, and are just getting impatient! I'm not familiar with the latest OS but, assuming 'Utilities' still exists, you have all the tools you need to effect whatever repairs are necessary.

In reply to digby:

Disk Utility is different in El Cap - the same functions but different format. Onyx does everything needed from one place and is freeware - it's the first thing I install usually.

Doug, I have replaced HDDs with SSDs in MacBooks, MacBook Pros (both unibody and non-unibody), Minis and iMacs now - they have all been much easier to do than expected. It's also possible to fit bigger SSDs in many of the SSD containing MacBook Airs - I had a MBA with a 256Gb SSD that was pretty much full all the time and it was a straightforward job to replace with a faster 512Gb SSD. It's hard to overestimate the difference an SSD makes in day to day use over a spinning hard drive and as prices fall further the bigger and faster the better. iFixit is a great website... but there are some newer machines that I wouldn't want to touch as everything important is soldered down. It all depends on your model, hence everymac.com is needed first.

cheers

b

In reply to Doug:

From the thread title I was going to ask what's wrong with tech wash? Seems I was wrong!!