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Could my external memory drive be making my Imac slower?

C

CyrusOz

macrumors regular
Original poster
Mar 15, 2009
145
0
After owning my Imac for about 12 months or more now I've noticed lately that it has become much much slower. I expected it to slow down just like all computers once you have used up a fair bit of memory space but I haven't used up much at all. I've tried to avoid using up too much space on my Mac by using an external storage drive but I'm wondering if that has the opposite effect, does anybody know for sure?

Oh yeah, I've got the usual apps that help the Mac to run efficiently and I've followed various threads that show how to optimise the mac so I'm assuming there isn't all that much tweaking left to do... could be wrong though.

A long time ago (i'm not sure what got into me) but I downloaded the apple developer software, I don't intend on using it but i don't what the correct names of the apps are and I don't want to uninstall the wrong stuff, what's your thoughts?

I have tested the speed of my Mac with and without the external memory drive but didn't find much difference, but perhaps my tests weren't entirely accurate. I look forward to your replies.

CyrusOz
 
As for Developer tools de-installation:
There is a folder called "Developer" at the root of your boot drive. Just delete this folder.
 
A year and a half ago my iMac was running hella slow. Like noticeably sluggish and it pissed me off. I couldn't figure it out for the life of me.

I made a backup of everything, reinstalled Mac OS X, and it was like someone gave me a brand new iMac. The whole process took an hour, and it would've taken half that if I'd been using Time Machine at the time. If your problem persists, consider a fresh OS install.

Good luck.
 
I have a LaCie 1TB Quadra hooked up to my laptop via FW400 and i've noticed that performance of my macbook tends to drop when it's plugged in. All i can attribute this to is that every time i do anything Finder related, my mac wakes up the drive and won't do anything til the drive is fully spun up, resulting in my laptop beachballing for a few seconds every time. very frustrating when you've got a workflow going.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant by your post, OP, but that's my experience with externals.
 
zaffle said:
I have a LaCie 1TB Quadra hooked up to my laptop via FW400 and i've noticed that performance of my macbook tends to drop when it's plugged in. All i can attribute this to is that every time i do anything Finder related, my mac wakes up the drive and won't do anything til the drive is fully spun up, resulting in my laptop beachballing for a few seconds every time. very frustrating when you've got a workflow going.

I'm not sure if that's what you meant by your post, OP, but that's my experience with externals.
Click to expand...

Disable HD spin-down in your Energy Saver settings and this problem is solved.
 
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