System Maintenance Question

[David Roth weiss]

[Ally Shore] “Do you wipe your main drives and reload everything? Do you run basic diagnostics? Do you reload a clean system? “

If nothing at all is broken then I say don’t do a 100% reinstall. The following is a very basic routine to follow when you’re just doing “routine maintenance.”

1) Repair Permissions on your system drive

2) Run Disk Warrior on all drives

3) Run Applejack using “applejack AUTO restart,” which will do many things, but above all cleans out all Unix caches systemwide.

4) Go get a beer and chill out.

If you have enough storage to copy all media while you reformat your main storage, that’s always a nice luxury, but it’s not completely necessary if Disk Warrior has its way.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Michael Sacci]

On going maintenance I use 3 apps routinely
For system I use these about every month
Cocktail, this cleans out all the caches and logs (think it is about $30 download)
Diskwarrior, rebuilds finder directory

For FCP
Preference Manger (same people that make FCS Remover) both are must have apps.

For new installs always clone your existing drive, that way there is no risk. Then reform your system drive and update system, than FCS, update that, then install current drivers and other software.

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Ally Shore] “Just a general question to the room. I’ve always been an “if it’s not broke…don’t mess with it” kind of gal. However, many people have said I should do periodic system & preventative maintenance on my computer. “

I would stick with if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

If your car is running fine, do you take it in to the shop?

Maintenance tools are fine, but don’t use them until something isn’t running correctly.

That’s my opinion anyway.

[David Roth weiss]

Applejack and Cocktail have many similarities and achieve many of the same results, but AppleJack is free, and because it boots and runs under its own Unix subset rather than under OSX, it is able to clean some system caches that Cocktail can’t access.

BTW, for the faint of heart or those who are timid when it comes to running these types of tools, in five years of use, I’ve never once experienced even a single issue created by Applejack, and I’ve used it on every type of Mac available running under every version of OSX.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[John Fishback]

They also make FCS Maintenance Pack. While I agree with both David & Michael and do the same kind of monthly maintenance, sometimes there are specific issues one of the programs in FCS MP can address, like a corrupt project or media.

John

MacPro 8-core 2.8GHz 8 GB RAM OS 10.5.8 QT7.6.4 Kona 3 Dual Cinema 23 ATI Radeon HD 3870, 24″ TV-Logic Monitor, ATTO ExpressSAS R380 RAID Adapter, PDE enclosure with 8-drive 6TB RAID 5
FCS 3 (FCP 7.0.2, Motion 4.0.2, Comp 3.5.2, DVDSP 4.2.2, Color 1.5.2)

Pro Tools HD w SYNC IO & 192 Digital I/O, Yamaha DM1000, Millennia Media HV-3C, Neumann U87, Schoeps Mk41 mics, Genelec Monitors, PrimaLT ISDN

[David Roth weiss]

[Jeremy Garchow] “If your car is running fine, do you take it in to the shop? “

Absolutely!!! You change the oil in your car don’t you Jeremy?

Routine maintenance using the tools I’ve mentioned above involves no danger, so why wait until your system breaks? By then it may be too late.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Jeremy Garchow]

I do, when it’s time to change the oil, yes.

I just don’t like Disk Warrior is all. It’s done more harm than good in my experience. Cleaning caches is fine, but not necessary, trashing prefs is good, but only when something isn’t going correctly.

I’m just saying, if it’s running fine, there’s nothing to fix. That’s my opinion and experience.

[David Roth weiss]

[Jeremy Garchow] “That’s my opinion and experience. “

I understand. Not one of us can convince the other if our own anecdotal experiences convince us otherwise.

Thankfully, my experience with all of these tools has been flawless, so I’m able to recommend them with 100% confidence. If that should ever change, I’ll be the first to report it right here.

David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Colorist
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles

POST-PRODUCTION WITHOUT THE USUAL INSANITY ™

EPK Colorist – UP IN THE AIR – nominated for six academy awards

A forum host of Creative COW’s Apple Final Cut Pro, Business & Marketing, Indie Film & Documentary, and Film History & Appreciations forums.

[Michael Sacci]

Cocktail is much prettier to look at :-). I bought the family license years ago and so far all the upgrades have been free. And command line tools scare me, I did like to see a UI.

If it ain’t broke, it can easily be fixed.

[Walter Soyka]

Whether you do system maintenance or not, your downtime would be a great time to make sure your backups are complete. Also, it’d be a great time to make a bootable clone of your main system drive to keep on-hand, just in case you experience problems in the future.

Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
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