How to Speed Up Mac Mini 2012 OS X El Capitan 10.11.4

This is year 2016 and you might feel that your Mac Mini 2012 is now old to run a powerful OS X version El Capitan 10.11.4? Actually, Mac Mini is a great desktop computer from Apple and it has always been a top Mac system. Indeed an old Mac Mini requires few hardware upgrades to speed up its performance. The best part of this model is that it can be configured with any other standard peripherals. On the contrary, the low RAM and processing speed of Mac mini pull down its performance.

As per Apple, the Mac Mini doesn’t waste energy. In an idle state, your Mac mini consumes lesser than 13 watts. And the aluminum body of Mac Mini is highly recyclable. 

The technical specifications for 2.3GHz Mac mini are given below

Processor: 2.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 with 3MB on-chip shared L3 cache

Memory: 4GB of 1333MHz DDR3 memory

With the passage of time it goes decreasing the performance of Mac mini. The reasons of slow Mac mini could include the following:

1. Low memory than required for applications
2. Low disk space
3. Running multiple heavy applications simultaneously
4. Drive defragmentations
5. Other hardware issues

Tips to speed up Mac Mini

Tip 1: Upgrade memory by adding additional sticks of DDR2 RAM (DDR3 for new models) module.

Tip 2: Clean up Mac drive with the help of a Mac drive cleaner utility. Delete duplicate files (iTunes, iMovies, iWork), remove unimportant applications, useless log files, caches and other unnecessary language files to free some hard drive spaces. Freeing up space on your hard drive can improve the speed and performance of your Mac Mini.

Tip 3: Defragmenting Mac could help you to speed up Mac Mini. It synchronises the files stored in your drive and rearranges the fragments of all files so as to minimize the access time of these files.

Tip 4: Empty the trash of your Mac Mini. Large files in your trash still takes up room on your hard drive and can adversely affect your computer's speed.

Tip 5: Keep an eye on applications that consumes unnecessary RAM through Activity Monitor in the "Utilities" section of your Mac. Aborting unnecessary applications could save you a lot of valuable resources.

Tip 6: Repair Mac hard disk drive permissions through Disk Utility in the "Utilities" folder.

Tip 7: Install Mac Drive Defrag utility and check the number of fragmented files with the help of demo version of the software. If too many fragments are present on the hard drive then defrag it using registered version of the software.

Tip 8:  Replace HDD with SSD and experience thunderbolt performance of Mac.

The above tips could help you speed up slow Mac mini. For more details visit: Fix Slow Mac.

Defrag Mac Hard Drive Running OS X El Capitan 10.11

Should I defrag Mac hard drive to speed up OS X El Capitan 10.11 performance? All those OS X El Capitan users who are struggling with the slow performance of the Mac hard drive have asked this obvious question.

Some of the best available tips for improving Mac OS X El Capitan performance are as follows -

(1) Remove Adobe AIR. Use the latest non-beta Adobe Air Install .DMG and the command line process

(2) Remove SIMBL and associated apps. Its a very effective step and has helped many of users.

(3) Defrag Mac disk to reduce the file access time of Mac hard drive

(4) Upgrading the Mac hard drive to a Solid State Drive

(5) Resetting PRAM and NVRAM to optimize slow Macs

Mac Drive Defrag

OS X El Capitan 10.11, just like earlier versions of OS X lacks in handling hard drive defragmentation with a built-in utility. Disk Utility has everything bundles including Drive Repair, Restore, Partition, Erase, Mount but didn’t have an option to kill the hard drive fragmentations.

Software to Defrag Mac

One of the few available Mac software, Stellar Drive Defrag works on hard drive defragmentation algorithms in order to eliminate fragments and improve OS X performance. The various options available in Stellar Drive Defrag tools are –

Metadata Defragmentation

While accessing a file, the Mac OS X holds vital information about that file. This information includes file length, date of creation, modification date, likewise. This information about a file is known as Metadata, which in other words is data-about-data. These files must be defragmented in order to access the files in a quick manner. Stellar Drive Defrag software removes file fragments such as attribute files, catalog files, extent overflow and allocation files.

Quick Defragmentation

This option is meant to rearrange Mac files into contiguous memory and arrange the free space into single chunk on the disk. As the name suggest, this is a quicker approach towards removal of hard drive fragmentations.

Full Defragmentation

This feature of Stellar Drive Defrag tool is meant to gather all the files and free spaces in the selected volume into separate continuous memory locations. It helps the Mac OS to read files quickly. Though full Mac defragmentation is a lengthy process, its outcomes are usually promising. 

Optimize

This option is meant to bring all the scattered free spaces in the Mac hard drive together into a single piece of memory which ultimately reduces the chances of fragmentation in future and thus helps for the storage of new files. The process of hard drive optimization shouldn’t be confused with hard drive defragmentation.

The Mac file system is capable enough to handle the fragmented files too a greater extent however, it will not be effective in case of files that too large too handle. If a user modifies large files continuously then Mac OS X alone can’t handle the fragments created. 

How to Optimize Mac performance without Software

Who does not like cleanliness of his/her Computer? Are you the one who abstains from cleanliness? Well, if not, then why do not you clean your Mac OS at regular intervals of time? Similar to every other thing around you, even computers require regular cleaning operations to perform seamlessly. In fact, cleaning your Mac not only includes removing the dust particles accumulated on it with a piece of cloth, a typical computer’s cleaning brush or something like that, but it also incorporates cleaning it internally. By which I mean to say that cleaning the hard drive is also important.

Dust Cleaning of Mac OS X

Well, you have to perform Mac cleaning job very efficiently, in case you want it to not to have performance issues, viz. sluggish boot, poor execution of apps, files taking almost forever to open, and many similar issues. In this regard, have typical computer cleaning brush or duster, which I am recommending because of its softness that is perfect to wipe out the dust accumulated on the outer part, keyboard, and its other important components. However, before you begin with external cleaning of your Mac, make sure you unplug all the cables (especially the power cable) to avoid probable accidents during cleaning up.

Drive Cleaning of Mac OS X

Internal cleaning of computers is as much necessary as the outer cleaning. In fact, internal cleaning is even more essential, which must be performed without failure after regular intervals. In order to optimize the Mac OS X performance, mentioned below are some of the prime areas where cleaning is required without any excuse:

Login Items in Mac

Login items are the applications, which launch on Mac, when it is turned on. Well, you must have noticed that some of these apps launch automatically when your Mac boots to desktop. These apps had created login shortcuts for themselves at the time of installation.To see the login items on your Mac, go to the Apple menu > System Preferences > Users & Groups and select your user account, and then click the ‘Login Items’ tab. All the Items listed here launch themselves when the Mac boots. To disable (or remove) all or any selected items, click to check the check box in front of individual items, and then click the minus (-) button.

Alternatively, you can also remove these items manually as well. Open a new Finder window and hold down the 'Command + Shift + G keys, and then type /Library/StartupItems and hit the Enter key or click the Go button. In the folder that opens, move the folder named same as the Login Item’s name you want to disable/remove to a different location (let’s say to Desktop), and them restart the Mac to apply these changes. In case you face any issue while running any specific app whose login shortcut is removed, put it back to the /Library/StartupItems folder.

Cluttered Mac Desktop

As you know that desktop is the very first screen you see on your Mac after it boot successfully, make sure it does not have much items located on it because a number of desktop items protract the system booting time. However, no matter how many times the users have been told, they do not get performance issues cluttered desktop causes.

Every single file located on desktop is considered as a program, and is executed in background before the boot process ends up. This eats up system resources (RAM & Processor) to a large extent and therefore, results in poor performance of the Mac system.

Obsolete System

Apple developers keep releasing updates for Mac OS X and the apps you have installed. These updates fix several issues or bugs reported by users all across the globe and the ones detected during different phases of system testing. Thus, make sure you install all the necessary software updates to avoid apps malfunctioning.

In addition to installing the required and authorized software updates, it is also necessary to keep your Mac system updated with the latest version. In this regard, you should upgrade to the latest Mac OS X Yosemite for seamless and large apps support. For this, go to Apple menu > System Preferences > Software Update and set Software update checking preferences. The above displayed Software Update settings check for the updates and download the available update.

Overfilled Mac Hard Drive

Hard drives are the prime sources of memory (i.e. storage of digital data) on computers, which today has been enlarged up to TBs (i.e. terabytes), divided into a number of volumes. Partitioning the hard drive is a good decision from the data security point of view. However, make sure these volumes are not overfilled. In fact, a disk must not have data more than 90 percent of its storage capacity. In other words, a disk must have some free space equal to at least 10 percent of its storage capacity in order to avoid any failure. Therefore, check both the storage capacity and the free space in each volume, and then remove the unwanted items throughout if necessary.

As shown in the above figure, a number of large files are stored on the hard drive, which should not be located over there if they are amongst the ones those are used rarely. Simply go through different volumes and find the rarely used items, and then either move them to an external drive or delete them if they are no longer required. Likewise, go to /Applications directory and remove all the unnecessary apps to free up disk space and hence, to make your Mac speedy.

Final Conclusion

Although you can optimize Mac OS X manually as discussed above, using a commercial and professional Mac speedup tool is quite ‘in favor’ and productive decision. Moreover, it not only saves your precious time, but it also avoids the risk of data loss due to Mac system failure. Alternately, you can also use some professional software like Stellar Speedup Mac Platinum Edition for optimizing your Mac OS X. This software can do all the tasks automatically and saves lot of time and important data from your Mac OS X.

3 Helpful Finder Tips for Mac OS X Yosemite Version

With the release of Yosemite version of Mac OS X, there are plenty of tricks which a Mac user can make to do more productive tasks. Some of these tricks make it easier to work with the files while other can help you to see the bigger pictures.Now, Apple provides the users to option of upgrading their already installed Yosemite and with this, you can see many new features in the finder of your Mac OS X.

Below are the 3 useful tips for OS X Yosemite:
1. Go Full Screen:
The pre-existing traffic light at the top left corner of the finder or in application window work different than it was before. And, if you haven’t heard the changes in traffic lights, then you may be surprised when you click on the green light. In the version, prior to Yosemite, the green button was mainly used between a window based size and the size which a particular user had adjusted the windows to. With the OS X Yosemite, the main function of green traffic light button is to toggle the windows to go full-screen. It means, that not only the finder, but any app run in the full- screen mode.

2. Add a Preview Pane to the Finder:
Though, it is not a new feature as you are thinking. A preview panel has been available in the finder column views. But, after the release of Yosemite, users can enable the preview panel via the Finder option. The Preview pane will display a complete thumbnail view of all the items which are currently present in the Finder. The Preview pane uses the same technology as used by Finder Quick Look system, so that you can see the multiple page documents and view each page whenever you want.

3. Batch Rename Come to the Finder:
Renaming a file or folder in the Finder is very easy process, especially if you want to rename only a single file at a time. Batch renaming apps have always a long history is OS X because the system had never been an in-built multi-file utility.Though, there are some apps like iPhoto which can perform the batch renaming, if you have a large number of files in the Finder whose named need to be changed simultaneously.

Final Conclusion:
These are the only 3 major new features which have added in the Yosemite version of Mac OS X. In addition to these, you can also see some other minor feature in Yosemite OS X.
If you know any other new and interest feature, please let me know them via comment section. You can also use Stellar Drive Defrag in order to improve the performance of your Mac OS X.

Review: Speed up Mac Platinum Edition Software

This 4th of July, I got a lifetime activation code for the newly launched software called Stellar Speedup Mac Platinum Edition through a popular giveaway website. On receiving this, I was equally delighted and curios to run it on my Mac Mini hard drive. In short, I am going to review this software package and let you know if this tool is worth for Mac OS X.

Background of the Platinum Edition:

The software Stellar Speedup Mac Platinum Edition is an extended version of already existing clean up Mac application called Stellar Speedup Mac. While the Stellar Speedup Mac is dedicated Mac cleaner utilities that have Uninstaller, its Platinum Edition has 7 more software to offer including Speedup Mac & Uninstaller apps. But the real deal is, how beneficial is Platinum edition?

Tech Specification of the Speedup Mac Platinum Edition

• Processor: Intel
• RAM: 1 Gigabyte
• Free Space: 50 MB
• OS X: 10.6 and up to 10.10
• DMG Size: 38.9 MB

How Platinum Edition is useful to your Mac?

Its 9 utilities perform below operation on Mac OS X:

1. Clean up Mac drive
2. Removes unwanted apps and software
3. Defrag Mac hard disk drives
4. Path Finder for removing large & duplicate files
5. Repairs corrupt Mac disk
6. Secure Wipe Mac
7. Monitor Mac hard drive condition
8. Compare Mac performance with other Macs
9. Schedule multiple tasks

Let’s get insight of this Clean up Mac application and find out how and when this tool can help

Speedup Mac

One can use the speed up Mac feature of Platinum edition when Mac becomes slow or looses it performance. Now, one has to understand that Speed up Mac utilities only clean up the garbage data from your Mac OS X. If your Mac is running out of space then this app is recommended. But if your HDD is full of free spaces still running slow then user must check other factors like RAM, HDD failure etc. Anyhow, coming back to this module of Platinum edition, it gives you opportunity to clean up all junk files from every corner of the Mac hard drive.

Speed up Mac module pulls out crap data from Logs, Caches, System Junks, Trashes, Binaries, Large files and Duplicate files. So, if your Mac is cluttered with these junk data then Speedup Mac can prove to extremely helpful. It can clean up to many GBs of data if your Mac hard drive hasn’t been cleaned from long time.

Caution: Files once cleaned couldn’t be restored back. So be cautious.

Uninstaller

Clean up Mac drive operation can be extended to further level by using Uninstaller to get rid of useless/unwanted apps, plugins and widgets from Mac OS X.

Uninstaller is useful as it can completely remove a stubborn application or those apps, which can’t be uninstalled using drag-drop on to the trash.

Defrag Drive

Ever thought of defragging a Mac? Actually there is no built in app in Mac to defrag Mac OS X. Moreover, you might not need to defrag a Mac. I recommend defragging a Mac only when your Mac HDD is read/write numerous times or Mac is being operated for the heavy video editor software. With Platinum Edition<<Defrag software you can defrag Mac startup drive, external disk drives and manage all stored files on contiguous memory locations.

Platinum edition offers 4 algorithms to defrag and optimize any Apple oriented hard disk drives. Alongside, it also monitors the temperature of the drive and stops the process when temperature exceed threshold limit.

Caution: SSD drives don’t need defragmentation.

Finder

Unlike the above 3 apps, Finder is considerable little but useful at times kind of app. If your hard drive is cluttered with large, unused and duplicate files then Finder can let you know the exact location of these files. Once user gets to know their location, he can remove or reveal them using Finder.

The Finder app is helpful when your iTunes, iPhoto, iMovies, iWork, Aperture library accumulate over dozens of duplicate data. Though its tiny it might be prove it by flushing out unused files and saving good amount of spaces for your Mac.

Volume Optimizer

The app name sounds typical but it is Mac disk drive repair software, which rebuilds the corrupt directory structure of Mac internal and external hard drives. It won’t be wrong to say that Optimizer is the most professional application of Stellar Speedup Mac Platinum Edition. If your Mac hard drive is attacked by Invalid B tree node problem and likewise then this module can repair the hard drive in more than couple of clicks.

Apart from repairing damaged Mac drive, this software allows repairing bad permissions on Mac startup drive. If Disk Utility repair disk permission results aren’t satisfactory then try repairing the Mac permissions with Optimizer.

Wiping Mac

If you have decided to sell of an old Mac then Wipe module of the Platinum software is helpful in terms of Secure Erasing the OS X and files beyond the scope of recovery. By giving it a closer look, you will realize that Disk Utility uses Zeroes, 3 Passes and 7 Passes to secure wipe Mac. On the other hand, Wipe application includes 3, 7, 35 Passes and various other data wiping algorithms.

User can wipe the Macintosh HD with this utility since it gives you an option to make bootable media with which OS X startup drive can be wiped. Other than Mac’s internal disk drives, it can easily secure wipe attachable media such as USB, SD Cards etc.

Drive Monitor

This application of Stellar Speedup Mac Platinum Edition can let you know the disk drive health status. User can check connected Drive/Volume’ SMART status. It further monitors drives temperature and overall status of the Apple HFS hard drives.

Drive Monitor<<Surface Scan helps determine the bad sectors on the Macintosh HD and mounted partitions. If your drives have developed bad sectors then you can take full back up of its data using software Backup feature.

Benchmark

Benchmark module compares your Mac system performance with the stored performances of other Mac systems. It denotes the system performance in terms of Bar Graph, Line Graph and Raw data.

Smart Care

If user wants to run multiple tasks of Stellar Speedup Mac Platinum Edition on definite times, then Smart Mac Care is the option to go. Once customized, this module Speedup, Wipes, Repair and Monitors Mac disks.

Ratings:

• Interface: 4/5
• Performance: 4/5
• Price: 4.5/5
• Ease of Use: 4/5

Summary:

If you want bunch of Mac optimization utilities at the price of two utilities then go for Stellar Speedup Mac Platinum Edition. Among the 9 apps of this edition, Speedup, Uninstaller, Defrag, Wipe, Optimizer and Drive Monitor are literally the ‘performers’.

Important Checklist Before Buying Mac Data Recovery Software

Data loss implies the loss of important information from any storage media such as hard drive, pen drive, DVD, memory cards etc. There are many cases when data is lost from the memory of the system due to corruption, deletion & formatting.
But, at the same time there are plenty of useful software’s through which we can easily recover our lost data.
Today, in this post I will share with you some of the main reasons why you need data recovery software and what are the steps, which you should take before buying the best data recovery software for your Mac OS X.

How Data recovery software helps you?
Data recovery is not as simple as it may appear. To make perfect data recovery software requires great deal of in-depth knowledge and time. Additionally, it requires various complex algorithms of computer science to work simultaneously.

So, if you are the one who have lost their data and are currently looking for the best data recovery software, then you need to know the below mentioned points before buying a data recovery software.

1. Have your checked your requirement first:
The software for which you are going to buy, there are many requirements that need to be completed. Each of the data recovery software has own requirements.
But, you need to check whether the software is really capable of recovering your lost data or not.
Home User:
If you are a home user who has lost the data from Mac, then you need to ask the below mentioned questions:
• Is the software support to the latest version of Mac (i.e. Yosemite?)
• Can the software recover deleted files from database, emails?
• Can it recover Time Machine drive?
• Can it recover from password-protected drive?
• Can it restore files from an unmounted drive?

Small Company:
If you have a small company of employee size (6-10), then you need better recovery software. In addition with the home user requirements, you need to ask the below mentioned questions to yourself:-
• Can the data recovery software run on multiple machines?
• Can it provide customer support?
• Can the software provide advanced data recovery option?

Big Enterprise:
Big enterprise, have hundreds to thousands of computers and hence their recovery requirement are too high. For this, you can either select a top data recovery company, which allows you to recover lost data from unlimited number of systems.
Stellar Phoenix Mac Data recovery software is one such software, which offers technician licenses to perform recovery of lost data.

Checkpoint 2:
Can software recover deleted or lost files?
You should also need to check whether the software is able to recover the deleted files or not? If the data recovery from the software is possible, then you need to be careful while recovering the data, as sometimes it affects the data integrity.
Lost data can be in any of the form, like image, video etc. Therefore, it is important to check and see whether the software is able to recover the files for all file formats or not.

Checkpoint 3:-
Can data recovery software support storage devices?
Storage devices are the devices, which are primarily used to store data. Good data recovery software provides support for all the storage media including the internal as well as external attached devices.

For example, a simple Windows based hard drive provide supports to the NTFS, FAT etc. file system, while a Mac based hard drive support only HFS and HFS+.
Mac data recovery software provides support for all the major and commonly used storage and media file systems.

Checkpoint 4:
1. It should be easy to use and install
2. Provide compatibility with all the operating system
3. Read as much reviews of the software you are about to buy.
4. Data recovery company should have sound refund policy in case software doesn’t perform as mentioned

Final Conclusion: - These are the final checklists that you need to know before buying the best data recovery software. If you know any others; please let me know them via comment section.

How to Optimize Mac after Yosemite (10.10) Installation

As we know about the latest operating system from Apple (i.e. Yosemite), for which an upgrade is now available. And with this upgrade, plenty of new features and enhancement comes to your Mac.

But, similar to any other upgrade there is a possibility that your Mac will become slow. So, I have compiled a list of tried and tested tips through which you can optimize your Mac easily after installing Yosemite.

Tips to Optimize Mac after Yosemite Upgrade:
1. Repair permissions:
This is the very first thing which you can do before installing an upgrade or after installing the upgrade to your OS. It can be helpful in fixing a lot of things. You can do this without restarting but you may want to run it from the recovery partition, which is automatically created after installing the new operating system.

2. Check Disk for errors:
Another thing, which you can do from the recovery partition, is to verify the hard drive issue. You can also repair the disk error.

3. Reset System Management Controller (SMC):
In my opinion, this along with some other things can fix the issues. If the fan of your system running all the time on your MBP, it’s always beneficial to do this. Read this article from official Apple site that tells you how to do it on different Macs.

4. Reset PRAM:
Similar to resetting the SMC, you should reset your system PRAM at regular interval of time. Here is the Apple support article for Yosemite.
• Turn off your computer.
• Press the power button.
• Press Command + Option + P + R in combination. After that, you will see an initial startup screen.
• Now, press and holds until your Mac restarts.
• Release the keys when you hear the startup sound which your system makes when it startup.
This is known as “reduce translucency” and for some users it helps to reduce the slowdown of their Mac. Simply, head over to the “system preferences > Accessibility” and then click on the “reduce transparency” button.

5. Free up disk space:
Last, but most important thing which you can do for improving the performance of your Mac after Yosemite installation is to free up some disk space. You can take the help of this utility for this purpose. Select the large and old files which you don’t need and free up your disk space.

Final conclusion:
These are some of the useful tips through which anyone can improve the performance of their Mac system after installing Yosemite. Please, let me know which of the above tips working for you?