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My current Macbook is my first foray into Macs and OSX. Its a Mid 2014 13" with 8gb RAM and 256gb SSD. It runs what I want to do with MainStage well and has performed brilliantly (compared to my dabblings with similar on Windows machines).

 

When I first got it I jumped straight in and installed various bits of software and overtime its become a bit clogged with stuff I don't need/want. Performance has also dropped off.

 

I want to basically start again. I have my MainStage patches and samples in one folder which I will put onto the cloud and backup locally and have a Timemachine backup of the whole system. I will write down the exact plug-ins and software I currently use so I can re-install them later.

 

What is the best way to format and re-install? I used to do this regularly on Windows system buts its new to me on a Mac.

 

Also any other things I should be thinking about/tips?

 

Nord Stage 2EX | Nord Wave | Mainstage | Key Largo
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Are you sure a format & reinstall is what you need to do? How full is your SSD? You should have at least 5 - 10 GB free space. If you don't, that could explain the performance dropoff. There is software that identifies uneeded cache files, duplicates or other bloat and prompts you to trash them or move to an external drive. I just updated to Mojave (10.14.6) and this is built into the system: Apple Menu-->About This Mac-->Storage-->Manage. There's another app I used to use called WhatSize that does this. They may have a demo.

 

If you reformat the drive and reinstall everything from a TM backup, you could be reinstalling whatever issue is creating the slowdown too.

 

The original 256GB drive in my late-2013 MacBook Pro was almost full so I recently put an NVMe 1TB drive in using an adapter. For $94 (+$17 for the adapter) my storage quadrupled and my disk write & read speeds almost doubled.

 

The way I formatted & reinstalled was to download the OSX installer and make a bootable USB stick. I can't find the exact app I used but this is similar: https://diskmakerx.com.

 

You boot from the USB stick, run Disk Utility and erase your drive, then install OSX. After that, hook up your TM drive, restore what you want, or reinstall from scratch. With TM you can restore a user account pretty easily â that saves a lot of time. I would definitely look into disk space issues before doing all this, though.

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Thanks Reezekeys

 

I have around 20gb of free space and have been deleting cache files, duplicates, download folder etc.

 

When I said I have a TM backup I wasnt suggesting I would re-install from this, just that I have it as a "backup" if everything goes wrong or I need to retrieve something that I forgot I needed.

 

That is interesting about you changing the drive. I didnt think the drives could be changed on these models?

 

Thanks for the tip on bootable USB stick

Nord Stage 2EX | Nord Wave | Mainstage | Key Largo
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Mac OS isn't Windows. It doesn't "rot" where performance just decreases over time and things start breaking; that just doesn't happen.

 

If you are seeing performance issues, something is happening that a reinstall probably isn't going to fix.

 

First thing I'd look for is whether all your plug-ins are fully up-to-date.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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If you're having performance issues, you could try creating another user and see if it also happens under that account. If it does, the problem is at the system level. If not, it's something in your user account. That should help you find out what might be causing the issue.

 

Depending on your free space (I *think* 20 GB should be enoughâ¦), it's crazy easy to create another volume using Disk Utility, and then you could install macOS into that. The multiple volumes are dynamically sized, which means each volume can grow and shrink as necessary as long has the actual drive has the space. The drive must be formatted as APFS. Here are the instructions. Note that he talks about installing Catalina (currently in beta) on the new volume, but you can install any version of macOS if you have the installer app handy. The latest for Mojave should be on the App Store.

"I'm so crazy, I don't know this is impossible! Hoo hoo!" - Daffy Duck

 

"The good news is that once you start piano you never have to worry about getting laid again. More time to practice!" - MOI

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That is interesting about you changing the drive. I didnt think the drives could be changed on these models?

The latest Mac laptops have soldered-in SSDs, you're stuck with whatever you have.

 

Our vintage's issues are different. Ours originally came with an AHCI drive in an M.2 form factor, however the connector is proprietary. Up until a year or two ago it was extremely expensive to upgrade the SSD in our machines; you either needed to buy a pull from another Apple machine or go to OWC (macsales.com). Then it was discovered that starting with MacOS 10.12, Apple supported standard MVMe drives. The issue was the physical connector. A company named Sintech makes an adapter "sled" that converts the standard NVMe connector to one that fits the MBP's motherboard. The benefit is not only financial â NVMe drives have come way down in price the last year â but our motherboards support four PCIe lanes, even though the stock Apple drive only did two lanes. So, cheaper drive, and almost double the speed. I got an Intel 660P 1TB drive, so far it's working fine.

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All OSes can benefit from wiping the disk and reinstalling include maybe more so Apple's. That why it ticks me off so much Apple for the ridiculous prices they charge don't include an OS disk that probably cost a buck to include. In my opinion Apple uninstall of app's is poor and leaves so many hidden files chewing up the hard drive. So to me clearing the hard drive and reinstalling clears a lot of crap of the drive and put all the system files back together after you've done multiple updates and upgrades.

 

So unless your running a production server with a lean and mean OS install and only the production applications installed a wipe and reinstall is something to do occasionally.

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Apps may leave some cruft, but unless there are actual processes still running in the background, or those remaining files are eating gigabytes and gigabytes of disk space that is sorely needed for memory swap, they will not affect performance.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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Helpful hint: by far the easiest and most effective way to back up your work before you do anything that puts a macOS disk at risk is to use one of the two excellent free drive cloning applications out there. I use SuperDuper!, which is fantastic and does basic stuff for free (the paid version adds some cool functions that aren"t necessary for basic backup), and Carbon Copy Cloner is also excellent.

 

These applications will copy everything on your desk to an external volume, and then make it bootable. Even with regular backups using time machine, I make and store a clone of all of my Macs several times a year. Either program is something that every Mac user should have and use.

That is interesting about you changing the drive. I didnt think the drives could be changed on these models?

The latest Mac laptops have soldered-in SSDs, you're stuck with whatever you have.

 

Our vintage's issues are different. Ours originally came with an AHCI drive in an M.2 form factor, however the connector is proprietary. Up until a year or two ago it was extremely expensive to upgrade the SSD in our machines; you either needed to buy a pull from another Apple machine or go to OWC (macsales.com). Then it was discovered that starting with MacOS 10.12, Apple supported standard MVMe drives. The issue was the physical connector. A company named Sintech makes an adapter "sled" that converts the standard NVMe connector to one that fits the MBP's motherboard. The benefit is not only financial â NVMe drives have come way down in price the last year â but our motherboards support four PCIe lanes, even though the stock Apple drive only did two lanes. So, cheaper drive, and almost double the speed. I got an Intel 660P 1TB drive, so far it's working fine.

 

This is really good information! What"s the model number/year range of the MacBook Pro that this works for? The OWC drives have a terrible reliability reputation, and it would be great to have a good alternative.

 

Dr. Mike Metlay (PhD in nuclear physics, golly gosh) :D

Musician, Author, Editor, Educator, Impresario, Online Radio Guy, Cut-Rate Polymath, and Kindly Pedant

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All OSes can benefit from wiping the disk and reinstalling include maybe more so Apple's. That why it ticks me off so much Apple for the ridiculous prices they charge don't include an OS disk that probably cost a buck to include. In my opinion Apple uninstall of app's is poor and leaves so many hidden files chewing up the hard drive. So to me clearing the hard drive and reinstalling clears a lot of crap of the drive and put all the system files back together after you've done multiple updates and upgrades.
Well, there is no need for an OS disk when you can download a fresh install from Apple while in Recovery Mode. Apps such as CleanApp can be used to wipe the "hidden" files, but I agree sometimes it is good to just completely wipe and do fresh installs, as long as you have backed up irreplaceable files, and have access to your install keys, authorization codes, etc.
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Our vintage's issues are different. Ours originally came with an AHCI drive in an M.2 form factor, however the connector is proprietary. Up until a year or two ago it was extremely expensive to upgrade the SSD in our machines; you either needed to buy a pull from another Apple machine or go to OWC (macsales.com). Then it was discovered that starting with MacOS 10.12, Apple supported standard MVMe drives. The issue was the physical connector. A company named Sintech makes an adapter "sled" that converts the standard NVMe connector to one that fits the MBP's motherboard. The benefit is not only financial â NVMe drives have come way down in price the last year â but our motherboards support four PCIe lanes, even though the stock Apple drive only did two lanes. So, cheaper drive, and almost double the speed. I got an Intel 660P 1TB drive, so far it's working fine.

 

This is really good information! What"s the model number/year range of the MacBook Pro that this works for? The OWC drives have a terrible reliability reputation, and it would be great to have a good alternative.

To my mind, this link is the "bible" of SSD upgrades for modern Macs: https://beetstech.com/blog/apple-proprietary-ssd-ultimate-guide-to-specs-and-upgrades

 

I'm pretty sure that most Macs that can run High Sierra will be able to use an NVMe drive with an adapter, but there may be exceptions due to motherboard issues for some earlier models. There are also hibernation issues with some earlier Macs.

 

The Sintech"sled" adapter I used is this one.

 

Keep in mind this is somewhat "hack-y." You must upgrade your original internal drive to High Sierra or higher before installing the new drive â this updates the firmware on the Mac's motherboard to allow booting from a 3rd-party NVMe drive. Of course you need the tools to open the case and remove the old drive. After it's installed you'll need to boot from an external drive or partition that's been prepared as a bootable OSX install disk - I used a USB stick as I described in an earlier post on this thread. Erase & format the new internal as GUID partition map and APFS file system, install OSX, then restore your stuff from a clone or TM backup.

 

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Really simple suggestion. Do a Time Machine backup. Then delete what you don't need. If you find that you later want something back that you deleted, then go into that Time Machine backup and restore that programme only.

 

While I am a Windows advanced level expert I love OSX for music. I know a lot less about it because I have never needed to dive into .plist files and kexts - it just works. More music - less day job trivia.

A misguided plumber attempting to entertain | MainStage 3 | Axiom 61 2nd Gen | Pianoteq | B5 | XK3c | EV ZLX 12P

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Thanks for the suggestions. I think I am going to create a separate volume and put another copy of OS X on there and install what I think I need programme wise. If nothing else it will be interesting to see if there is any performance difference between the two volumes
Nord Stage 2EX | Nord Wave | Mainstage | Key Largo
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Your idea is a good one. I've always maintained two separate partitions on my internal SSD, both with OSX systems on them. One is for my everyday computing and the other is strictly for music work. On that partition, I've installed no 3rd party software other than what I need to do music with. I also go online very little in that partition's system and haven't done any iCloud stuff with it â just trying to keep it "pure." I'm sure a lot of folks might think this is overkill; I know I could have one system and separate accounts, dedicating one for music, but that doesn't totally separate things. I prefer doing it with two completely separate systems.

 

You mention you have 20gb free space. That might not be enough space to set up another partition with a separate system and the apps you need â or it might, but I suspect you will be low on free space, which is generally not a good thing with SSDs. Good luck!

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To reinstall your operating system and keep the files one just needs to do a Command + R Find the WiFi icon (you are not in OSX) log on and reinstall the OS. Apple ID is needed. It downloads it so it is a long download. Just did this with a MacBook and it cured the problem I was having. All my files were intact.

 

I used to 'start over' years ago using Ghost software with Windows. (even way, way, back in late 90s) I programmed the computer to the way I liked it. Made a Ghost image. Used the computer for a while and when it got bogged wrote over the OS with the one I originally made. Ghost originally was a small but powerful DOS program just over 700KB. Then it was Norton Ghost and got to be a giant program. Now defunct. The original was a New Zealand program. They used to have 'reinstallation' CDs of Windows. Could take a couple hours to be complete with all the reboots, etc. Ghosting it, it took like 5 minutes with one long write-over. Pleasant memories of that.

 

WH

 

 

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