My mac is running really slow and am considering SSD & Lion

Question

My mac is running really slow and am considering SSD & Lion

Hi. I have a mac pro that is around 3 years old I think, might be slightly older. Im not in a position whereby i can rep,ace it for a new machine and want to get it runing faster and more reliable. Photoshop is crashing a lot at the moment.

Im not that computer compliant when it comes to doing these sorts of things so am after advice.

My lune of thought is as follows, I would like to get up and running with Lion so all my machines talk to each nicely (ipad 3 iPhone 4 iMac 27") but am a little nervous in case i end up with issues on equipment i already have. (pretty sure im being paranoid)

Im also looking to get an SSD drive for the boot drive and load this with Lion.

Is there a way that I can set up Lion on the ssd in order to ensure all my equipment will run nicely on Lion and once I am confident i can then make the full switch over?

What SSD drives would people recommend and what size. I didnt really want to splash out over £500 on a 512 but if I have to then so be it.

I do have drivesmin all the other bays and also use a Drobo external for all my photos. I could sacrifice one of the internal drives if needs be.

I cant find my original install disc, will I need this if i am going to load lion instead, I do have the snow leopard disc from when I upgarded tomthat recently so maybe this is all I need.

Be really grateful for some simple instructions and advice.

Let me know if you need any further information on my behalf.

Thanks in advance

Jason

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.5.8), 2 x 2.8 Quad

Posted on Mar 23, 2012 5:00 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 23, 2012 6:26 PM in response to JLMedia Photography

The Mac you have should not be running slow. It has a problem that you need to solve, and throwing Hardware at the problem will not solve it. Put that scheming aside for now, until you figure out why it is slow. Use these to start:

Using Activity Monitor to read System Memory and determine how much RAM is being used

Runaway applications can shorten battery runtime

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Answer 2

Mar 24, 2012 2:14 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Hi Grant, Thanks for the response, much appreciated.

I agree that it should not really run slow however I would really like to upgrade to Lion anyway and thought that doing it via the SSD route would be good way to do it as the SSD should help speed things up once I sort out the underlying issue at present. I also wanted to try and load lion but still have Snow Leopard available on the original drive for the time being till I knew that eveything was working well using Lion but I'm not sure if this is possible and how to do to this.

I have just clicked on 'Verify disk' on HD1 in the utility menu and there is a problem there. It is asking for me to start using another disk such as the mac installation disc but I am not sure where I have put this. Seeing as I have upgraded to SL would this now be the new installation disc and if so, do I just put the disc in the machine and restart?

Thanks for your help

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Answer 3

edgy360

Level 1

20 points

Mar 24, 2012 2:25 AM in response to JLMedia Photography

I had a similar issue with my Mac Mini (Mid 2010). The computer started running really slow and it would freeze a lot. I ran Disk Utility and got a very similar error message to you.

I would recommend that you backup to another hard disk using Time Machine. Then boot from the Snow Leoapard installation disk, open Disk Utility and run a repair on the hard disk. Hopefully it should be able to fix it, if not it might ask you format the disk.

In my case, this issue was caused by a faulty hard disk which I had to have replaced, since the same error occured after a complete format and reinstall.

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Answer 4

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 2:38 AM in response to JLMedia Photography

JLMedia Photography wrote:

I have just clicked on 'Verify disk' on HD1 in the utility menu and there is a problem there. It is asking for me to start using another disk such as the mac installation disc but I am not sure where I have put this. Seeing as I have upgraded to SL would this now be the new installation disc and if so, do I just put the disc in the machine and restart?

All those disk errors may be why you have poor performance (i.e., disk recovery attempts trying to handle those errors during disk accesses). You need to run Disk Utility to repair that drive and you need to boot from another bootable drive or installation dvd (assuming it has Disk Utility on it) to do that. You cannot repair (only verify) the drive you are booted from which is why Repair was grayed out.

If you have an installer dvd, insert it into your machine. Then boot and push the C key immediately after you hear the boot chime. It should boot from the dvd. It won't be that fast. But it should boot. Then find Didk Utility on that boot dvd (look in the menus) and launch it.

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Answer 5

Mar 24, 2012 2:50 AM in response to edgy360

Thanks for the info

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Answer 6

Mar 24, 2012 2:52 AM in response to X423424X

Thanks for the info,
As mentioned before, I cant find my original install discs but have recently upgraded to Snow Leopard, would I be able to start up using this disc instead of the original leopard disc (bearing in mind I am now running 10.6.8)
If so, can you advise how I do this please, sorry for being so naive

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Answer 7

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Mar 24, 2012 6:25 AM in response to JLMedia Photography

#1 never ever use an older version.

Start wtih a clean install on a new disk drive.

you can use Setup Assistant if you want to import your old files.

There are things that relied on powerpc that won't work, paranoia it is not as there is little about Lion that will rujn better other than in 64-bit mode with large graphic programs and amounts of RAM.

Clean up and start with a fresh foundation and built the 'house' on that, not on the broken beams.

If you do need Lion, keep it on its own hard drive and dual boot for a couple months.

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Answer 8

Mar 24, 2012 7:44 AM in response to JLMedia Photography

upgraded to Snow Leopard, would I be able to start up using this disc ?

Yes. Insert the disc in the drive and either double-click on "Install Mac OS X" or Restart and hold the C-for-CD key at the chime.

Answer only the "what language question, then wait a quarter minute for the MenuBar to be drawn. Choose Disk Utility from the Utilities Menu.

Select the drive mechanism by Make & Model, and inspect the SMART status in the lower right for "Verified". Then click ( Repair Disk ). Run it repeatedly until all the errors disappear or it gets stuck. Report any unsolveable error message back here.

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Answer 9

Mar 24, 2012 9:43 AM in response to The hatter

So to clarify, would you suggest I install a new SSD drive into one of the bays (I presume this could be bay 2 so bay 1 stays as my current boot drive)

Once I am happy that everything is running fine I can then remove snow leopard from the HD1

Excuse my confusion but are you saying I would be better to stick with Snow Leopard?

Thanks

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Answer 10

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Mar 24, 2012 10:07 AM in response to JLMedia Photography

The boot drive does not need to be bay #1

People commonly use the lower optical bay for an SSD (or two)

And yes new OSs tend to add more overhead. Some apps have gotten better.

Yours is the Early 2008 8-core with 8 FBDIMM slots

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Answer 11

Mar 24, 2012 11:14 AM in response to The hatter

I have reinstalled snow leopard and have run the 'Verify Disc' which is now reading as ok.

I will see how I get on with photoshop as it was this that was crashing quite a lot.

Fingers crossed it is all running well again.

I still think getting myself running with an SSD for boot and for running PS will be beneficial and maybe using an SSD for the scratch disc would be beneficial.

I would like to upgrade the machine in the nearish future but for now I will run with what I have.

I will ask for advice about setting up Lion on a different drive and copying things over

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Answer 12

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 11:40 AM in response to JLMedia Photography

HDD or SSD, I would advise you to have additional backups. At least one, preferably two. Backup regularly and verify your drives a little more often with Disk Utility so that if some errors start to occur they hopefully won't get compounded into problems so bad that DU can't fix them.

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Answer 13

Mar 24, 2012 11:45 AM in response to X423424X

Hi, Yes I did get in the habit of using super duper, I will make sure it is set to run daily again.

My other files are on a Drobo external raid type system so are backed up and I burn dvds of raw files for off site back up.

I will do a monthly verify, how often should I very disc permissions?

On a slightly different note, am I able to move all my music files for itunes onto a different drive or will this not work well? I was considering putting them on the drobo but wondered if they need to be in the documents folder on the main drive?

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Answer 14

X423424X

Level 6

14,265 points

Mar 24, 2012 12:06 PM in response to JLMedia Photography

I will do a monthly verify, how often should I very disc permissions?

General rule of thumb, don't bother. It only verifies the OS permissions, not user stuff, and it's a waste of time anyway.

On a slightly different note, am I able to move all my music files for itunes onto a different drive or will this not work well? I was considering putting them on the drobo but wondered if they need to be in the documents folder on the main drive?

iTunes for Mac: Moving your iTunes Media folder

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Answer 15

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Mar 24, 2012 12:45 PM in response to JLMedia Photography

only time to use system duper is before you update the OS in any way

hopefully you only keep the OS and apps on the boot drive

maybe a mini-user home folder as well?

but keep all the data etc on another hard drive - helps performance and also most problems occur with the boot drive and that is easy to restore from your clone backup.

you can clone the data drives also.

If only TimeMachine would allow for alternating backup drive sets (daily set, weekl only), or use NAS or Drobo as central shared backup storage.

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