OS X Finder/Network SLOW

[VegetaPunk]

Im running
533Mhz G4's
768 MGs of RAM
16 meg ATI Rage Graphics cards

I just switched one of these boxes over to OSX at work and most things seem great except when browsing for files both in and out of applications, using the search function (on the network). Is there anyway of fixing this (Im not allowed to order new machines for another 2 years which is insane IMO) Is there anyhope that tiger will bring big improvements in the finder/network speed?

Thanks for any suggestions
VegetaPunk

 

[MisterMe]

Im running
533Mhz G4's
768 MGs of RAM
16 meg ATI Rage Graphics cards

I just switched one of these boxes over to OSX at work and most things seem great except when browsing for files both in and out of applications, using the search function (on the network). Is there anyway of fixing this (Im not allowed to order new machines for another 2 years which is insane IMO) Is there anyhope that tiger will bring big improvements in the finder/network speed?

Thanks for any suggestions
VegetaPunk

You have an old machine. You speed it up by installing a processor upgrade. However, a processor upgrade is a half measure. To really speed things up, you buy a new machine.

 

[HarbV7.0]

Is the network appletalk or are you using Samba? Slow searches/browsing over the network is generally a problem on the server side. If you are experiencing a slowdown getting to servers/other machines it could also be your routers/switches causing the problem with OSX. If you're running the spanning-tree protocol on your network, try turning it off.

For the local machine, enable journaling on the local drives and run a program like cocktail or macjanitor to perform maintenance.

Yes Tiger will have drastically faster searches using spotlight. There will be suport for metadata which will make searching incredible. Think of how fast iTunes performs searches and imagine all searches being that fast and much more precise and granular than they are at present. It's also one of the main features M$ is is going to feature in Longhorn. Heh, but once again Apple will beat them to it.

Ouch, 2 years eh? That sucks . Then again I have a feeling we may not see the 5 2.5 dualies we ordered about a month ago until then...