Q: How Can I Improve Mavericks Performance (much slower than 10.8)?

Try turning off Time Machine as it appears your backup disk is too small.

Your 13% mds seems to suggest that Spotlight indexing hasn't completed. Mine is 0.0%

Destinations:

                    Data [Network] (Last used)

                    Total size: 3 TB

                    Total number of backups: 79

                    Oldest backup: 2012-12-18 07:58:20 +0000

                    Last backup: 2013-11-30 01:06:05 +0000

                    Size of backup disk: Too small

Try turning TM off, you can always turn it back on.

Unclicking stuff is not turning off Spotlight, just removing the items from your search results. Click on the Privacy tab and use the + sign to add your hard drive. Then restart your Mac.

Your system looks fine, I expect the launchd jobs are all up to date, since that is the role of those ones. I would remove one of the duplicate Adobe jobs - [loaded] com.adobe.ARM.[...].plist It should be in the hidden ~/Library/LaunchAgents (use the Finders 'Go menu > Go to folder' to open it).

It's worth checking the pref panes & related software are up to date.

As Lanny said, it looks like spotlight is rebuilding index(s). Make sure it stays awake for that to complete (I find 10.9 will sleep at the drop of a hat).

I'd also shutdown & remove the non essential HD's to see if it behaves better with just the boot disk. If that is the case back them up & run Disk Utility to verify & repair any errors.

I'd also open the side door & try to hear or feel which disk is actually thrashing.

Also see if any messages appear as the thrashing takes place, it's difficult to pick out relevant messages, but try to grab a few samples, too many log lines will just prevent people from interpreting them.

What is com.apple.MediaLibraryService ?

It seems to be related to some kind of iTunes synching process, suggest you quit iTunes to see if the process stops.

Seems to be an indexer for photos?

https://discussions.apple.com/message/23636152#23636152

I should have been more specific, look in Console in the all messages section. It's in Applications/Utilities.

The fsusage command in that thread may help you too.

Joe Seidler wrote:

I'm skeptical the Time Machine warning matters. The disc is over half empty and it's been running for over a year.

You are right to be skeptical about that. Etresoft has said elsewhere that this is just intended as a rough guide for sizing Time Machine backup drives & the whole Time Machine section of the report is mostly just meant to show if a Time Machine backup is in use, which can help with suggestions for fixing some kinds of problems.

Also, he has just released a new version (1.9.1) that tries to gather info about older apps on the machine, also intended to help with suggestions for fixing some kinds of problems.

First, back up all data immediately unless you already have a current backup. If you can't back up, stop here. Do not take any of the steps below.

Step 1

This diagnostic procedure will query the log for messages that may indicate a system issue. It changes nothing, and therefore will not, in itself, solve your problem.

If you have more than one user account, these instructions must be carried out as an administrator.

Triple-click anywhere in the line below on this page to select it:

syslog -k Sender kernel -k Message CReq 'GPU |hfs: Ru|I/O e|find tok|n Cause: -|NVDA\(|pagin|timed? ?o' | tail | open -ef

Copy the selected text to the Clipboard by pressing the key combination command-C.

Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Terminal in the icon grid.

Paste into the Terminal window (command-V). I've tested these instructions only with the Safari web browser. If you use another browser, you may have to press the return key.

The command may take a noticeable amount of time to run. Wait for a new line ending in a dollar sign (“$”) to appear.

A TextEdit window will open with the output of the command. Normally the command will produce no output, and the window will be empty. If the TextEdit window (not the Terminal window) has anything in it, stop here and post it — the text, please, not a screenshot. The title of the TextEdit window doesn't matter, and you don't need to post that.

Step 2

There are a few other possible causes of generalized slow performance that you can rule out easily.

• Disconnect all non-essential wired peripherals and remove aftermarket expansion cards, if any.
• Reset the System Management Controller.
• Run Software Update. If there's a firmware update, install it.
• If you're booting from an aftermarket SSD, see whether there's a firmware update for it.
• If you have a portable computer, check the cycle count of the battery. It may be due for replacement.
• If you have many image or video files on the Desktop with preview icons, move them to another folder.
• If applicable, uncheck all boxes in the iCloud preference pane. See whether there's any change.
• Check your keychains in Keychain Access for excessively duplicated items.
• Boot into Recovery mode, launch Disk Utility, and run Repair Disk.
• If you have a MacBook Pro with dual graphics, disable automatic graphics switching in the Energy Saverpreference pane for better performance at the cost of shorter battery life.

Step 3

When you notice the problem, launch the Activity Monitor application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Activity Monitor in the icon grid.

Select the CPU tab of the Activity Monitor window.

Select All Processes from the View menu or the menu in the toolbar, if not already selected.

Click the heading of the % CPU column in the process table to sort the entries by CPU usage. You may have to click it twice to get the highest value at the top. What is it, and what is the process? Also post the values for User, System, and Idle at the bottom of the window.

Select the Memory tab. What value is shown in the bottom part of the window for Swap used?

Next, select the Disk tab. Post the approximate values shown for Reads in/sec and Writes out/sec (not Reads in andWrites out.)

Step 4

If you have more than one user account, you must be logged in as an administrator to carry out this step.

Launch the Console application in the same way you launched Activity Monitor. Make sure the title of the Console window is All Messages. If it isn't, select All Messages from the SYSTEM LOG QUERIES menu on the left. If you don't see that menu, select

View ▹ Show Log List

from the menu bar.

Select the 50 or so most recent entries in the log. Copy them to the Clipboard by pressing the key combinationcommand-C. Paste into a reply to this message (command-V). You're looking for entries at the end of the log, not at the beginning.

When posting a log extract, be selective. Don't post more than is requested.

Please do not indiscriminately dump thousands of lines from the log into this discussion.

Important: Some personal information, such as your name, may appear in the log. Anonymize before posting. That should be easy to do if your extract is not too long.

npgtpo3dautoplugin + the search field = https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4974705 :)

Your Mac looks clean enough (unless you want to lose the Internet plugins). See what Linc's help turns up.

PS you asked earlier about Spotlight indexing, it's possible to exclude disks in the privacy section of Spotlights preferences. It will erase the index & may not resolve anything, but it is one option.

I have the same problem. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hardware Information:

          MacBook Pro (13-inch, Mid 2009)

          MacBook Pro - model: MacBookPro5,5

          1 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo CPU: 2 cores

          4 GB RAM

Video Information:

          NVIDIA GeForce 9400M - VRAM: 256 MB

Audio Plug-ins:

          BluetoothAudioPlugIn: Version: 1.0 - SDK 10.9

          AirPlay: Version: 1.9 - SDK 10.9

          AppleAVBAudio: Version: 2.0.0 - SDK 10.9

          iSightAudio: Version: 7.7.3 - SDK 10.9

System Software:

          OS X 10.9 (13A603) - Uptime: 0 days 14:24:5

Disk Information:

          Hitachi HTS545050B9SA02 disk0 : (500,11 GB)

                    EFI (disk0s1) <not mounted>: 209,7 MB

                    Macintosh HD (disk0s2) /: 499,25 GB (259,12 GB free)

                    Recovery HD (disk0s3) <not mounted>: 650 MB

          HL-DT-ST DVDRW  GS23N 

USB Information:

          Apple Internal Memory Card Reader

          Apple Inc. Built-in iSight

          Apple Inc. BRCM2046 Hub

                    Apple Inc. Bluetooth USB Host Controller

          Apple Inc. Apple Internal Keyboard / Trackpad

          Apple Computer, Inc. IR Receiver

FireWire Information:

Thunderbolt Information:

Kernel Extensions:

Problem System Launch Daemons:

          [failed] com.apple.wdhelper.plist

Problem System Launch Agents:

Launch Daemons:

          [loaded] com.adobe.fpsaud.plist

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.daemon.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_service.plist

Launch Agents:

          [loaded] com.google.keystone.agent.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer.plist

          [not loaded] com.teamviewer.teamviewer_desktop.plist

User Launch Agents:

          [failed] com.apple.CSConfigDotMacCert-@me.com-SharedServices.Agent.plist

          [loaded] com.spotify.webhelper.plist

User Login Items:

          Mail

          Safari

          SpeechSynthesisServer

          Download

3rd Party Preference Panes:

          Flash Player

          Flip4Mac WMV

          Perian

          Shades Preferences

Internet Plug-ins::

          Flip4Mac WMV Plugin: Version: 2.3.8.1

          FlashPlayer-10.6: Version: 11.9.900.152 - SDK 10.6

          EPPEX Plugin: Version: 3.0.5.0

          Flash Player: Version: 11.9.900.152 - SDK 10.6

          Becon: Version: (null) - SDK 10.7

          Default Browser: Version: 537 - SDK 10.9

          JavaAppletPlugin: Version: 14.9.0 - SDK 10.7 Outdated! Update

          QuickTime Plugin: Version: 7.7.3

          Silverlight: Version: 5.1.20513.0 - SDK 10.6

          iPhotoPhotocast: Version: 7.0

User Internet Plug-ins::

          Google Earth Web Plug-in: Version: 7.1

Bad Fonts:

          None

Old applications:

          None

Time Machine:

          Time Machine not configured!

Top Processes by CPU:

               8%          iPhoto

               2%          mtmd

               1%          WindowServer

               1%          EtreCheck

               1%          hidd

Top Processes by Memory:

          250 MB             iPhoto

          139 MB             Safari

          78 MB              Mail

          57 MB              WindowServer

          53 MB              Finder

Virtual Memory Statistics:

          24 MB              Free RAM

          874 MB             Active RAM

          859 MB             Inactive RAM

          528 MB             Wired RAM

          3.96 GB            Page-ins

          1.21 GB            Page-outs

One big difference was a delay with the boot disc thrashing a lot when I started the computer and when I launched any app. That is, after starting my Mac Pro (2008), once the windows are all visible, there is a 30+ second delay (with the boot disc thrashing a lot) before it responds.

If you find that your boot drive to be thrashing substantially more than previously then more than likely it's not a matter of OS X Mavericks itself but the physical nature of HDDs. Thrashing, where your HDD is constantly seeking from one end of your platter(s)s to another, is more a sign of where your OS and data is on your HDD rather than what is on your HDD.

My suggestion is to simply clone your boot drive to another, empty, drive (the best would be another internal drive of the same size or larger so you can directly compare) and see how well it runs. My guess is that given your disk utilisation is at 60% or so a simple clone off and clone back will mostly, if not entirely, fix your issues.

Virtual Memory Statistics:

          24 MB              Free RAM

          874 MB             Active RAM

          859 MB             Inactive RAM

          528 MB             Wired RAM

          3.96 GB            Page-ins

          1.21 GB            Page-outs

Tos, you need more RAM pure and simple.