Improving Performance - reformatting Disk...Other Options ?

Ok - here are my specs.

 

OS X El Capitan - 10.11.6

 

iMAc - 2015

3.2 GHz Intel Core i5

Memory - 16 GB

 

My hard disk has 1 TB Capacity and I only have about 8 Gigs left.

 

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A lot of my Logic Pro X projects are working very slowly. Or not at all - Especially ones with Vsts as well. In custom view it shows HD and CPU being taxed.

The message that shows is the one on Hard Disk Error

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Are there any SURE ways to improve performance by a LOT? If so would that be

 

Freeing disk space and reformatting HD?

 

How much HD min would I need to start seeing good performance again? Using an external isn't an option.

 

 

The most important thing though is - whatever steps you guys recommend, are they all FULL proof?

i.e - unlike OS updates - they can't, by definition cause problems? Or can the shifting around of file / folder pointers in reformatting by definition

be dangerous?

My hard disk has 1 TB Capacity and I only have about 8 Gigs left.

Red flag!!! You definitely to make some more space on your hard disk. The typically recommended free space amount on a hard disk is 25%, that's 250 Gigs on a 1 TB capacity drive! So start there. No need to reformat.

THanks Dave!!! Will do and update.. it will take a few days cause of all my projects..but will do and report

Actually you should NOT start a defragmentation when your HD is so full!

 

Acquire a bigger HD, idealy an SSD one. Copy at least half of your full drive to it. By copying, I mean don't move that content. Copy it.

Once the copied data is secured on the new drive, you can then erase it from the old one to free space on that one.

Actually you should NOT start a defragmentation when your HD is so full!

 

Acquire a bigger HD, idealy an SSD one. Copy at least half of your full drive to it. By copying, I mean don't move that content. Copy it.

Once the copied data is secured on the new drive, you can then erase it from the old one to free space on that one.

 

 

Atlas thank you! Sounds great. Only question is - can there ever be issues when that's done? Maybe not in theory not but in actual practice

have you ever heard of projects having problems?

 

I'm assuming if I copy the entire home directory with all my projects than all "relative" data will stay in tact in case there's a project once in a while that refers

to a sound file outside of it's "internal audio files" folder right?

 

and i guess i can open up the projects from the new drive one by one til I know they're all ok..

 

but have you ever heard of any issues one can run into with this?

 

btw - do you mean install an internal HD? or external? with external I worry about power outages

In all modern-day computer filesystems, "defragmentation" is basically a thing of the past. That sort of thing went the way of "MS-DOS FAT," and the comparatively very-slow disk devices of that era. All of the current filesystems, for Windows, OS/X, and Linux, no longer have this problem.

 

Buy a big, beefy external hard drive ... or, splurge and buy more than one. (They're simply not "expensive" anymore!) Use one of them for Time Machine backups, and use the other one for storage space. (If your machine uses, say, "USB-C," then an inexpensive "hub" will make it trivially easy to attach devices.)

 

P.S.: When you buy your new drive, it will undoubtedly be formatted for a Windows filesystem. Use "Disk Utility" to repartition and reformat it to suit your Mac. Which takes all of about two minutes. Easy peasy.

...Only question is - can there ever be issues when that's done? Maybe not in theory not but in actual practice

have you ever heard of projects having problems?

 

I'm assuming if I copy the entire home directory with all my projects than all "relative" data will stay in tact in case there's a project once in a while that refers

to a sound file outside of it's "internal audio files" folder right?

 

and i guess i can open up the projects from the new drive one by one til I know they're all ok..

 

but have you ever heard of any issues one can run into with this?

Normally, moving projects (in its folder or package form) should not pose problem, especially if you took care of consolidating them. Problem you mention could arise when plugins are "looking for" related data which have been left in their original location (outside of project's folder or package). Same is more prevalent with 3rd party samplers instruments, since they are not covered by Logic's consolidation function.

 

I have also seen that occurring (rarely) with registration's code like those using iLok; in latter case upon opening the project Logic's alert pop up there are missing plugins. Although Logic will reveal the name of the missing plugin, it won't specify which preset was actually used. Consequently, if no track's/project's notes had been specifying same, it could be quite difficult to retrieve the original sound, especially if it was edited (but not saved as such) or in big track's count projects.

 

...btw - do you mean install an internal HD? or external? with external I worry about power outages

I was referring to adding and copy/moving to an external drive.

 

Changing the internal HD will most likely cause registration's code issue mentioned above. And possibly the other one as well, although less likely in latter case. I would follow MikeRobinson's advices.

 

If you intend to change your internal drive, it is advisable to proceed by steps:

1. Copy your data on your new external (bigger) drive.
   
2. Test your projects to ensure everything is ok (ideally on a different computer)
   
3. Change your internal drive for a new (ideally bigger) one.

Every hard-drive's label has a UUID = a globally-unique ID, which is supposed to uniquely identify the volume anywhere in the world. It is my understanding that this is one of the things that iLok uses. But you should be able to repeat the installation procedure of the lock device to fix that.