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Is there a tangible, worthwhile benefit to a totally clean wipe/reinstall of OS X?


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Is there a tangible, worthwhile benefit to a totally clean wipe/reinstall of OS X?
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2014-10-17, 18:43

I've had this iMac since September of 2008 (where it was purchased as a year-old refurb as the second-tier iMac of the August 2007 releases). In other words, it's old.

And in all this time, for each OS (since 10.5 Leopard), all I've done is install the new OS on top of whatever's there. I've never done a drive wipe and a ground-up OS X install (and install my handful of third-party apps again). I feel like there's probably six or so years of who-knows-what lurking about my system.

Everything I own/use, I've purchased via download at this point (Illustrator CS6, Pixelmator, etc.), so reinstalling shouldn't be any big deal.

I downloaded/installed Yosemite last night, and I also updated the various other apps that needed it (iTunes, iPhoto, etc.).

I've got a 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac with 3GB RAM, and I've got the Yosemite installer on a USB thumb drive and not much planned this weekend (tonight/tomorrow).

Would you take the time to do a clean wipe/reinstall? If so, why? Or why not? Is there any benefit or performance gain I might experience? Or am I smart to just leave everything "as is" and not open that can of worms.
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709
¡Damned!
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Purgatory
 
2014-10-17, 19:03

I've been planning on doing a wipe/clean install of Yosemite since they introduced it. The last handful of OSX versions have made it so easy to just upgrade & update I think the last time I did a wipe and install was Snow Leopard, where back when Apple was on their 2-year OSX plan I did it every time. It just feels so good. Lord knows all the voodoo from previous years a clean install just shakes out. Sure, it's a bit of a hassle to get everything back to the way you're used to working, but for me I think it'll be worth it.

* an aside: I plan on using Boot Camp for a partition of Snow Leopard as well, so I'll be going forward and backward when I get down to it. I've never used Boot Camp before, so I'm kind've excited.

[edit]: this is on a 2010 Quad 2.93Ghz i7 iMac. Last(?) of the beasts to be able to run PPC apps, I think. I will be upset when this one eventually goes boink.

So it goes.
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2014-10-17, 19:12

I think I'll sleep on it and see what I think tomorrow. I'm afraid if I start right now (8pm), I'll wind up screwing around with it all until 1-2am, and I'm already yawning...
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PB PM
Sneaky Punk
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
Send a message via Skype™ to PB PM 
2014-10-17, 20:06

A good fresh install (after doing a secure erase, not standard) every 2-3 years cannot hurt and will likely help. Mac OS X does a good job of dealing with fragmentation, but a good clean up like that every few years is helpful. IMO the real reason your system might seem very slow is RAM. 3GB really isn't enough for a modern OS, let alone other apps.
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psmith2.0
Mr. Vieira
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Tennessee
 
2014-10-17, 21:06

True. But I just can't bring myself to sink the money into something this old, at this point. I can only go to 4GB, so I can't imagine 1 more GB changing much of the experience, can it?
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PB PM
Sneaky Punk
 
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Vancouver, BC
Send a message via Skype™ to PB PM 
2014-10-17, 23:10

It's not likely to make a huge difference. My sister and brother in law have the same machine, so I realize that by modern standards that machine is just dog slow to start with.
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