If any of you guys with performance problems with spinning beach balls have external drives attached that go to sleep, that may be the problem. My time machine drive always goes to sleep after a few minutes and if i try to save a file, sometimes dialogs won't open or complete opening until the drive spins up. I'd speculate the same might happen if you have the System Preferences option selected under energy savings to put the hard drive to sleep when possible. I'm not saying that's the problem, but it might be.
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Reverting Back to an Earlier Mac OS X Version
- Thread starter BradHatter
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Not from my end...
1. My external drives are all FireWire, and Apple has set Mavericks not to sleep FireWire drive when idle unless ejected.
2. System Pref settings always uncheck, but regardless of that setting, FireWire still won't sleep on Mavericks. Initially bug-reported, Apple said it is normal.
In any case, Mountain Lion is still feels lightweight compared to Mavericks... And Finder is still bug-ridden and slow on Mavericks and Yosemite whether or not an external drive is plugged in...
Well, it's worth a shot anyway. I had performance problems with Mavericks eating up too much memory, and the culprit was IconServicesAgent. If you have a standalone system with only one boot partition it's OK, but once you start adding partitions it becomes a memory pig. One of the products that came with the Scannerz package is called Performance Probe and it still shows memory in terms of a pie chart instead of using a compression graph. I suspect the reason Apple got rid of the pie chart in Activity Monitor is to cover up the fact that some of their processes gross memory consumers. Compressed memory is just used memory, no matter how Apple tries to excuse the increasingly poor quality of their applications by hiding their resource abuse behind a "compression graph." Total BS in my opinion!
I've been comparing Mountain Lion, Mavericks, and Yosemite recently. With Mail, Safari, Calendar, and Notes running, with the website in Safari using the exact same site, Performance Probe shows Mavericks using about 10-20% more than Mountain Lion, and Yosemite is the ultimate pig, using 3/4's of my 4GB just to show that basic stuff. It actually seems to spawn irrelevant instances of web processes just for the hell of it. This is stupid.
I don't care about the people that say things are quick and snappy with Mavericks and Yosemite. The newer the version of Mac OS X is, the bigger the memory pig it is. A few hundred megabytes for IconServicesAgent and gigabytes of file space, all just to draw icons? Multiple instances of Safari Web Processes just to open up a single web site like CNN to see some video under Yosemite? This is just resource abuse.
I gave my son an old iMac with a Core2Duo processor. It's only capable of running Lion, but oddly, it can do all the tasks I just mentioned with less than 1GB of memory on a system that only has 2GB of memory. Why is that?
I have to wonder if this gross resource inefficiency isn't part of a marketing plan to try to sell systems with more memory, and if it is, it's dishonest.
I've been comparing Mountain Lion, Mavericks, and Yosemite recently. With Mail, Safari, Calendar, and Notes running, with the website in Safari using the exact same site, Performance Probe shows Mavericks using about 10-20% more than Mountain Lion, and Yosemite is the ultimate pig, using 3/4's of my 4GB just to show that basic stuff. It actually seems to spawn irrelevant instances of web processes just for the hell of it. This is stupid.
I don't care about the people that say things are quick and snappy with Mavericks and Yosemite. The newer the version of Mac OS X is, the bigger the memory pig it is. A few hundred megabytes for IconServicesAgent and gigabytes of file space, all just to draw icons? Multiple instances of Safari Web Processes just to open up a single web site like CNN to see some video under Yosemite? This is just resource abuse.
I gave my son an old iMac with a Core2Duo processor. It's only capable of running Lion, but oddly, it can do all the tasks I just mentioned with less than 1GB of memory on a system that only has 2GB of memory. Why is that?
I have to wonder if this gross resource inefficiency isn't part of a marketing plan to try to sell systems with more memory, and if it is, it's dishonest.
The introduction of Yosemite seems to have brought out a lot of criticism of Apple. I don't know how to put it. It's sort of like people had this stored up anger building at Apple for some of the releases they've had over the past few years and now it's been triggered and it's all being let out. It seems to have started with Lion.
You have to admit, bugs in the newer releases have been more rampant than in the past.
You have to admit, bugs in the newer releases have been more rampant than in the past.
The quote "Change for the sake of change" seems to one repeated often in describing the problems with their OS changes.
Factor 2: Elimination of perfectly good features for no apparent reason. Here are some examples:
- The spinning Time Machine Icon: This could be used to tell someone when their system is doing a backup. It can explain a slow down, and if one is about to shutdown their system, they might just want to let it finish before shutting down.
- Elimination of Display Preferences Icon in the Dock: This option allowed a user to quickly bring up Display Preferences. It was useful. The code was there. Why kill it?
- Killing the "Save As" feature when saving a file: Although brought back, why was it eliminated and replaced with an archaic and unconventional "export" option. The "Save As" option is virtually universal. I've seen some people not familiar with the archaic export option totally trash some of their work.
- Killing Expose: A totally useful and awesome feature that was killed, then sort of brought back in a half-assed way. Why kill it anyway?
- Eliminating Multi-tasking: Basically, that's what App Nap does. Most people are unaware of it's existence. I suspect a lot of the people complaining about download problems for Yosemite are experiencing this - the download starts, App Nap kicks in, and then it only downloads when the download app is active. Apple should have launched a dialog telling users about this, and give them an option to enable/disable it if they don't want it. Instead, people just think their systems are locking up on them.
- Elimination of 3D effects and controls: 3D effects make it clear to a user what's a control and what isn't. Now, at least with Yosemite, in some cases text fields look just like controls. On iOS 7+, colored text replaces controls. When I see colored text I don't think control, I think it's either a hyperlink or just colored text. This is probably the worst example of the negative "progress" Apple is making because it defies logic and most universal UI standards.
Given time, I'm sure I could think up more. Removal of useful features is not progress.
How about things that should have been fixed long ago but never have been?
Example: If you want to save a screenshot using Grab, your only option is tiff. How many people use tiff? That's something that should have been enhanced to save as a file type a long time ago....like in 2002.
Example: If you want to save a screenshot using Grab, your only option is tiff. How many people use tiff? That's something that should have been enhanced to save as a file type a long time ago....like in 2002.
You are not the only one with slow boot speed though. Back in June 2011 my old laptop died. I bought a MBP 2011 because I thought all macs boot really fast. However my stock Snow Leopard installation took more than a minute to boot on the factory OEM Seagate 500GB HDD. I couldn't stand that though, I then purchased a Kingston HyperX 120GB SSD since OS X Mavericks and now on Yosemite and both of them takes less than 10 seconds to boot. So I think your computer has something else faulty. Would you mind Genius appointment?I'm not interested in turning this into a Yosemite is good/Yosemite is bad thread. What I want to know is which OS has the best performance. Here are examples of what I'm looking for:
- Using the same hardware, which OS will boot the fastest?
- Which OS will use the least drive space?
- Which OS will use the least memory?
- If I were to run the same application on each OS, will one OS show superior performance to another?
- Will the age of the OS cause some compatibility problems. For example will a "new" web page be able to be read with an "old" browser, like Safari in Leopard.
- Which OS will have the fewest bugs?
- Are there lingering, as in not fixed and not going to be fixed bugs?
Has anyone, anywhere ever done such a comparison? I saw a 2006 iMac boot a Lion volume in less than 30 seconds using an OEM HD, which can't even be fast anymore. The best I can do with an SSD on my system, when the SSD is working of courseif boot Mavericks in about 40 seconds. I assume it would be twice that with a real HD, and it appears it will be even worse with Yosemite.
Why the gross inefficiency??
Ouch...! You should have tried booting times on Snow Leopard... It trounces both the bloated Mavericks and Yosemite...
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How fast is the new Mac Pro, from pressing the button to full desktop? The thing I love with UEFI PC, there is no chime, no beep. Soon as you press the button on the PC the screen appears and in 4 seconds, desktop. Fully loaded ready to go.
The chime takes the longest on any Mac even with good SSD's.
The chime takes the longest on any Mac even with good SSD's.
You can't really compare a new Mac Pro with a 2011 MacBook Pro. Like I said before, boot times are going to vary depending on how many and what type of devices are connected to a system. The only way to properly determine the native boot speed of a system is to boot it with nothing else attached. For example, if I disconnect my 2TB USB backup drive from my system, the boot speed will increase significantly. If you look at the /var/system.log file, it will tell you that every time the system is being booted the drives are being checked and mounted prior to continuing with boot. Additionally, if a system has an internal optical drive connected, that will slow it down as well, and be the slowest if there's media in it.
supersmart: you're not comparing Apples with Apples, you're comparing a new MacPro's boot speed with an old MacBook Pro and then telling someone to take their system to Apple for servicing because it's acting normally.
Yosemite does NOT boot fast. It's the slowest booting OS Apple has ever made.
Yosemite does NOT boot fast. It's the slowest booting OS Apple has ever made.
Boot speed can also be affected by kernel extensions. Depending on how the system loads and what it's loading, aside from drive informations, some applications may load extensions that might be time consuming. To test true boot speed, you really need a clean system, preferably with nothing else installed on it, and no other drives. You would really need to do clean installs of the OS on the system being tested as well. Finally there's the speed of the hardware itself.
A 2009 MacBook with a 5400 RPM drive is not going to boot anywhere near as fast as a recent MacBook Pro with an SSD.
A 2009 MacBook with a 5400 RPM drive is not going to boot anywhere near as fast as a recent MacBook Pro with an SSD.
Chill I wasn't the one comparing the Mac Pro with an old Macbook Pro. I've been through 2 years with ridiculous boot speeds too. Well, I took it to service because my logic board died though.
Try Leopard that's even faster.
They **are** loading tons of stuff. If I get time I should get and post, just for the fun of it, a screen shot of all the processes running under Yosemite vs. Snow Leopard using Activity Monitor.
Loosely speaking: where a system offers more features whilst running, I expect more processes.
I don't worry about boot time because it's rarely appropriate/necessary to shut down.
I've been using Mountain Lion for a few weeks now. Here are my observations:
The bugs aren't show stoppers, but they can be irritating. For example, sometimes Safari just crashes for no reason, sometimes when it isn't even doing anything. Another oddity is that the mouse pointer when using Safari can go to a spinning beach ball and stay there. The system isn't locked up, I can use Safari just fine, it's just that the cursor is the spinning beach ball as long as Safari is the active window. Another bug is that Notes once in a while can just up and delete a note, not only from the system but from my iPhone as weil.
I think Mavericks is a little more refined. More stuff seemed to work consistently, but like I said, none of the bugs in Mountain Lion are show stoppers. I've had no lock ups, no drive crashes, and really, no compatibility problems.
I would say for me the two best candidates that still offer services I want are still Mountain Lion and Mavericks.
I wonder if it's possible to create a Users folder that could be shared by all operating systems universally, meaning 10.6 through Yosemite. Anyone know if this is doable?
- Definitely boots faster than either Mavericks and Yosemite.
- Application response seems faster than Mavericks or Yosemite.
- BUGS - There are a few bugs with some of the applications, primarily Safari that don't exist in Mavericks.
The bugs aren't show stoppers, but they can be irritating. For example, sometimes Safari just crashes for no reason, sometimes when it isn't even doing anything. Another oddity is that the mouse pointer when using Safari can go to a spinning beach ball and stay there. The system isn't locked up, I can use Safari just fine, it's just that the cursor is the spinning beach ball as long as Safari is the active window. Another bug is that Notes once in a while can just up and delete a note, not only from the system but from my iPhone as weil.
I think Mavericks is a little more refined. More stuff seemed to work consistently, but like I said, none of the bugs in Mountain Lion are show stoppers. I've had no lock ups, no drive crashes, and really, no compatibility problems.
I would say for me the two best candidates that still offer services I want are still Mountain Lion and Mavericks.
I wonder if it's possible to create a Users folder that could be shared by all operating systems universally, meaning 10.6 through Yosemite. Anyone know if this is doable?
It depends on how many OS X versions you intend to keep running. Generally what you would need to do is take all the specific folders/directories you want shared and put them into a separate folder or even volume, then create symbolic links into each user account's home folder on each system as needed. You can't do this for everything, especially the ~/Library folder because it will contain some items that are system specific and/or not compatible. For example, Mail data is stored there, and Mail in Snow Leopard and earlier, maybe even Lion, I just don't remember, are not compatible with that of Mountain Lion and newer.
IMHO you'd really have to limit it to static data.
I noticed a few people in this thread mentioned updates, especially security updates for older OS versions.
How big a deal are these updates anyway? If you're like me and you're using a single machine, and when you connect to the web you get a new IP address every time, what are the odds that someone would be able to hack my system using one of these obscure vulnerabilities? If someone wanted to switch their OS back to, say Snow Leopard, how much of a security threat is that?
Also, how and where can you find out if Apple has stopped supporting a version of OS X. The last time I checked, they were still selling Snow Leopard install disks on their site. You had to look for it, but you could find it, and I think that was just a few months ago.
How big a deal are these updates anyway? If you're like me and you're using a single machine, and when you connect to the web you get a new IP address every time, what are the odds that someone would be able to hack my system using one of these obscure vulnerabilities? If someone wanted to switch their OS back to, say Snow Leopard, how much of a security threat is that?
Also, how and where can you find out if Apple has stopped supporting a version of OS X. The last time I checked, they were still selling Snow Leopard install disks on their site. You had to look for it, but you could find it, and I think that was just a few months ago.
I was visiting a neighbors house and they had an iMac - a G5 iMac that is. They were still running Tiger on it. These aren't exactly the types of people that chase the latest technology. I have to wonder how many problems they might have with websites not being displayed properly. Never the less, it still seems to work for them.
I think my own opinion has become for users to find what they like and stick with it. Unless there's some compelling reason to update, don't. Just look at all the people that have been burned by Yosemite.
I think my own opinion has become for users to find what they like and stick with it. Unless there's some compelling reason to update, don't. Just look at all the people that have been burned by Yosemite.