My mac is slowing down...

[XXXmen]

I have a macbook pro and it is starting to slow down abit. What are some maintenance things I can do to speed up my mac .Can i trash any preferences or cache? If so where do i do that??

I load all my photos and music through external and not sure why everything is running so slow. Can someone offer some suggestions.

I only have like 15g free on HD.

[smartcdn]

I have a macbook pro and it is starting to slow down abit. What are some maintenance things I can do to speed up my mac .Can i trash any preferences or cache? If so where do i do that??

I load all my photos and music through external and not sure why everything is running so slow. Can someone offer some suggestions.

I only have like 15g free on HD.

How is this possible? Reeading past threads on Macs vs PC's show that Macs are better because they don't slow down over their life...

Even then, I don't see how even a PC slows down. The processor either works or it doesn't. Your mac at X GHz should still be running at X Ghz. maybe you're running newer and more power-hungry applications?

[TruE SkiLLS]

wat kinda applications are slow? its cause u can reset stuff like safari and they will speed up again.

[XXXmen]

I'm using Adobe Cs3 collection and lots of apps such as eyetv, handbrake, ipod related programs, parallels to run pc mode, snapzpro etc. So what can I do to optimize my mac better. Can I defrag my drive? Clear cache, if so how do i do that?

[emacs]

Even then, I don't see how even a PC slows down.

data fragmentation on the hard drive results in longer read/write times. the Windows filesystem isn't smart enough to make better use of contiguous blocks of free space.

[emacs]

Can I defrag my drive?

if you believe file fragmentation is a cause of decreased performance have a look at http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1375?viewlocale=en_US

[IronMac]

Off the top of my head:

A. Which MBP and what OS are you running?
B. How much ram does your MBP have? Are you running all those apps at once or how many are you running?
C. What does your Activity Monitor say?
D. How much space is your HD rated at? If you have a 200 gig drive and you only have 15 left then you're in trouble right there.

[CoinSaver]

I have a macbook pro and it is starting to slow down abit. What are some maintenance things I can do to speed up my mac .Can i trash any preferences or cache? If so where do i do that??

I load all my photos and music through external and not sure why everything is running so slow. Can someone offer some suggestions.

I only have like 15g free on HD.

Yea, the older Macs end up with a case of envy when the new ones come out. Talk to your Mac and make it feel better.

Seriously, it has to do with the free space. Clear up some files or get a larger hard drive and it will be fast again. How much RAM do you have? That will always help too.