trying to speed up my system questions...

Hi All,

I'm just getting back more heavily into music and am finding that my mac seems to be running slow.

Even opening apps etc....

I was just transferring stuff from my old i7 mac mini 2012 that had an ssd drive and notice that

apps open very fast, but not so currently on my 2017 i7 27 retina with a fusion drive etc.

Wondering if there is any downside to getting and installing cleanmymac?

Could crashplan and dropbox which are always on in the backround be part of the problem?

Also does it make sense to get rid of old vst duplicates of au components or will i potentially have to reinstall plugins if i do?

And wondering if it would help much to replace my focusrite scarlit 2i2 with something more up to date and if there

were any current recommendations?

Last last, if anyone has a recommendation for a good new mic that isn't too pricey....

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Very grateful for the advice i've received on this forum!

John

Clean my mac is hot air, avoid it.

Fusion drives are worse than SSDs, not really ideal for music purposes.

If dropbox is constantly updating that can slow things down a bit, but not much. Don't know what Crashplan does.

A new interface won't make your computer any faster.

What mic are you thinking of? Condenser, dynamic, to record what? Budget?

Thanks for your suggestions Triplets.

I'm looking for a mic to record vocals and was wondering if there is anything new or newish that

people reccommendthat isn't too pricey etc.

Regarding the fusion, i'd prefer not to replace it, because i don't think there's anything wrong with it, but

i think it probably needs a good cleaning, that's why i'd thought maybe the cleanmymac would be helpful etc...

Again, thank you!

run disk first aid. reset nvram, and the smc (google or check apple support pages for instructions for your specific mac).

make sure no apps are set to open on login (dropbox is fine, check your crashplan settings to see how often it runs), and reboot; open ONLY logic, and try to work.

migrating stuff sometimes causes problems, but there are SO many variables.

make sure your apps and your 3rd-party plugins are up-to-date (you didn't list your operating system version in your sig...)

good luck with this!

Take a look at Activity Monitor when you have LPX loaded with your biggest project. You can have a bottleneck with memory, CPU or disk.

If it's memory, your machine will support up to 64 GB RAM. You probably have two 8 GB sticks and two 4 GB sticks; replacing the 4's with 16's will double your memory to 48 GB.

If it's CPU, the other suggestions above will help you clear out a bunch of other cruft that might be competing for clock cycles.

If it's disk, see if leaving Logic on your Fusion drive and putting your music etc. on your external will help. And make sure you're getting a good throughput to that drive - attaching through a hub can slow it to USB 2.0 speed depending on the hub and other attached devices. Also some drives are functional without external power but faster with; make sure you've got that drive doing its best.

Take a look at Activity Monitor when you have LPX loaded with your biggest project. You can have a bottleneck with memory, CPU or disk.

If it's memory, your machine will support up to 64 GB RAM. You probably have two 8 GB sticks and two 4 GB sticks; replacing the 4's with 16's will double your memory to 48 GB.

If it's CPU, the other suggestions above will help you clear out a bunch of other cruft that might be competing for clock cycles.

If it's disk, see if leaving Logic on your Fusion drive and putting your music etc. on your external will help. And make sure you're getting a good throughput to that drive - attaching through a hub can slow it to USB 2.0 speed depending on the hub and other attached devices. Also some drives are functional without external power but faster with; make sure you've got that drive doing its best.

Thanks for your help!!

And – maybe it's time for a new Mac?

Over the years, I've bought [almost] every one of my Macs from Apple's "refurbished and clearance" section, which is very-neatly buried in an out-of-the-way place on their site. (https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished)

"Here's where all the equipment winds up, after people have run their fingers over it in classrooms and in retail stores last year." In the eyes of the law, they are officially no longer "new equipment." But Apple has now taken them back and completely restored them to "as new" condition. Now, they're ready to sell them to you with the same AppleCare® bumper-to-bumper warranty terms that they would have offered you twelve months ago, but at a significant price discount.

"Go ahead. Go ahead. Drool over it this year." But ... "wait a year(!)" to actually buy it.