Monday 6 August 2012

It's here!

The Samsung SSD 830 for my Macbook.

Now I want to know, why are Macs so slow using USB devices these days, and why do they seem to infect USB devices with slowness? I'm backing up to an external HDD and it's running apparently at around 10Mb/sec. I've only got 77Gb on the drive, but it seems to be taking forever.

The *plan* is that I'll pop the SSD in, create a fresh install of Leopard, then update, then install Snow Leopard on top, then update again to 10.6.8, then download & install Mountain Lion + updates. Then install Office 2008.

At that point I will have to decide whether to system restore from Time Machine, putting everything back as it was, or whether to reload manually. Right now the last option is looking favourite, simply so I can ditch some stuff that I'm sure is cluttering the Macbook up, hopefully losing the memory leak at the same time and keeping the benefits of a fresh install.

For security I will have the original HDD & 2 Time Machine backups, 1 at work &1 at home, so that IF I choose the restore option then I still have 1 backup that is compatible with 10.5.8 and can defeat Apples scorched earth policy to legacy.


In other news, I'm still trying to recover strength. A couple of weeks back I did a cycle ride that completely exhausted me, but probably made me fitter. Now the same thing is happening with my mind, being stretched and pulled to the point where, sometimes, it's just exhausted but cannot relax & rest. Greater mental fitness will come, but it's a painful uphill struggle, and the body is tired too. We'll get there.