A guide to speeding/tuning up OSX

Yes your Mac may be quite fast OTB and will remain relatively fast over the next 4 years or so with minimal maintenance. Anyway, I did some research and did some poking to see if I can squeeze more computing power.
Mods, if you think this is useful, do sticky this so that others can benefit.

Before reading this guide, backup your data on your time machine. This guide defnitely works for me, and it may not work for you, or crash your system. I shall not be held responsible for anything that happens to your Mac.

Also, every Mac is built differently, and everyone has a different config, so this guide may not be for you as it had only been

Machines with SSDs are as fast as is, but I managed to pull out more performance on them. Also, I tried this tuning on Apple's stock 500GB 7200rpm harddisk and performance did increase too, so hopefully this guide works for everyone

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Step 1: Disable paging/swapping
Go to console and type these commands.
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist
sudo rm /private/var/vm/swapfile*
Restart your computer.

It is not recommended you disable swapping if your Mac does not have a lot of ram. This step only helps if you have lots of ram, also, this step is a real dealbreaker as its the one single step which boosts the OS the most. So as a guide, only try this if you have 4GB or more of ram. Any lower and you will find your system locking up.

Step 2: Disable Dashboard
Go to console and type these commands.
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean YES
killall Dock
Restart your computer.

Step 3: Disable Spotlight
Go to console and type these commands.
sudo mdutil -a -i off
mdutil -E /
sudo launchctl unload -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
Restart your computer.

If you absolutely cannot live without file searching, I suggest downloading QuickSilver, its an alternative to spotlight and searches faster and without needing for indexing.

Step 4: Delete unused language packs and non-Intel architecture types
Download Monolingual
Delete the language packs you do not use and the non-Intel architecture files.

When deleting languages, make absolutely sure you delete the languages you do not use or you're screwed until you reinstall SL. Also, if you're running apps on non-Intel architecture, do not remove those files.

Step 5: Make your dock 2D
Go to console and type these commands.
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean YES
killall Dock

Step 6: Remove unnecessary startup apps
Open system preferences,
Open your user account,
Under login items, remove the apps you do not want to have at startup.

Step 7: Clean up your permissions
Download OnyX
Run the permissions cleaner under Maintenance > Permissions
Ensure the maintainence scripts are run under Maintenance > Scripts.

Step 8: Remove unused items in dock and move all items away from desktop
Self explanatory.

Step 9: Defrag
Buy iDefrag and defrag your system.

Many people say defragging OSX is not necessary because the OS "self-maintains" itself. This is only partially true. OSX will only sort and maintain files under 20MB which means it only moves the small files to optimise the system. However, OSX has around 300k to 1mil files with 80% of them less than 20mb. If you do the math, after a period, your disk will simply become fragmented, hence the need to defrag once in a while.

Do not defrag if you are using an SSD. SSDs perform best when fragmented, in addition you make it spoil faster.

Step 10: Disable local time machine backups(LION ONLY)
Go to your console and type in this command
sudo tmutil disablelocal

If you have Time Machine enabled, it regularly makes backups onto your hard drive. If you have your own external HD or NAS making Time Machine backups for you, local backups of Time Machine are unnecessary, not to mention, backups constantly perform read and writes, hence slowing down your hard drive. Very useful for people who own SSDs or hard disks with small capacities.



Uninstalling Procedures

Step 1: Enable paging/swapping
Go to console and type these commands.
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.dynamic_pager.plist
sudo rm /private/var/vm/swapfile*
Restart your computer.

Step 2: Disable Dashboard
Go to console and type these commands.
defaults write com.apple.dashboard mcx-disabled -boolean NO
killall Dock
Restart your computer.

Step 3: Disable Spotlight
Go to console and type these commands.
sudo mdutil -a -i on
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.metadata.mds.plist
Restart your computer.

Step 4: Delete unused language packs and non-Intel architecture types
Use Time Machine

Step 5: Make your dock 2D
Go to console and type these commands.
defaults write com.apple.dock no-glass -boolean NO
killall Dock

Step 6: Remove unnecessary startup apps
Open system preferences,
Open your user account,
Under login items, add back the apps you want to have at startup.

Step 7: Clean up your permissions
Use Time Machine

Step 8: Remove unused items in dock and move all items away from desktop
Self explanatory.

Step 9: Defrag
Cannot be undone

Step 10: Disable local time machine backups(LION ONLY)
Go to your console and type in this command
sudo tmutil enablelocal