Mac Formatting
Hey team
Just wondering how often you other MBP guys format your machines? Ive had mine about 12 months and have not done one yet.. lol :eek:
Im not having any issues at the moment but im about to buy logic and ableton so figured id clean things up and start out fresh when i install them.
Just run onyx and repair permissions now and then. files smaller than 20mb are defraged automatically so that helps a lot. unless it’s broken, don’t try to fix it 
yes. copped a new hd for xmas, entered disk utility after probably a year of not using it, what comes up?
S.M.A.R.T status - failing
nearly shat myself. keep an eye on that bitch, verify and repair permissions.
Idk, but no need to format if your not having problems. Sometimes peoples boredom causes more problems then what was previously present
+1000000
what does repairing permissions actually mean? iv got a mac and am wondering if I should be doing that?
yeah right? i havnt touched my HD since i got my mac almost 2 yrs ago. havnt had any problems other than it slowing down when i got too much shit open every once and a while
Repairing Permissions: it’s in Disk Utility. Click on your hard drive, and it should open the “First Aid” pane by default.
Google it to see what it does, or just trust Disk Utility when you click “verify” that if it says you need to repair them that you do and that it won’t break anything. It probably won’t. Also, google “update prebinding.”
But, yeah…OS X isn’t Windows. It doesn’t shit itself, and for the most part programs behave and put stuff where they’re supposed to. IMO, the only reason to format a drive early is when you’re doing a fresh install for some reason or if you need to refresh an SSD…or you decide you’ve got so much crap you downloaded and don’t actually want that it would be faster to reacquire (from backups or the original source) the stuff you really want than to delete the stuff you don’t.
BTW, wiping free space appears to fix my SSD’s issues, though I haven’t run any benchmarks. I wipe my free space with 0s (one pass) about once a month or two or whenever I notice stuttering. Disk Utility is fine at that too. It’s under “Erase,” but it doesn’t harm your data. Well…it can, but if it can, you’d know why you’re storing stuff in what the OS considers free space.
About Formatting on OS X: the only times I’ve done a format/install is when a new major version comes out (as in, they switch to a new big cat) or I break something really badly. I’m a geek…I like to toy with things. Usually when I’ve broken something that badly, I knew it was an extremely likely result of what I was trying to do…and I went ahead anyway. A few times, it was unforseen issues trying to run Pro Tools LE on 10.4.8 and 10.4.9 that made my laptop not boot. (Never figured out why…just sold my MBox)
Since 10.6 came out, I’ve formatted once…to install 10.6. I’ve (non-destructively) resized the drive, changed boot managers, installed linux for specific coding projects, deleted Linux, and gone back to my original configuration like 4 or 5 times in the last year…without reformatting my OS X partition.
Seriously…those days of needing a fresh install to make it feel like your computer isn’t a paperweight were over the day you bought a mac…unless you try to screw it up.
I do an OS reinstall, defrag, and do a full work up on my computers annually during Summer Break. So, once a year.
Don’t Forget to Call…
Tekki-Support
Some people do a fresh install of the OS once a year. It’s not really need though sic utilty and onyx are all I ever do really. The iMac’s still on 10.5 though so it’s time is coming.