[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

You do realize that a lightweight OS affects performance in other areas other than GUI responsiveness, right? Lightweight OSes scale better as computing needs and the demand on resources increase. You are stressing CPU speeds here, which makes me think that we are talking about entirely different things. I'm referring largely to RAM consumption. Spinning wheels are often caused by virtual memory usage and disks that can't keep up with this thrashing.

We're not talking about different things, but I think we're seeing different needs and having different experiences. In my experience the only time I have seen OS X slow down is, as when you said, it gets low on RAM. However, I don't see this as a critical issue, as the steadily dropping prices of RAM mean adding more is trivial. I can get 16GB for under US$300. I can get 8GB for under US$150, and 8GB is enough to make the spinning beachball vanish forever for almost all tasks.

I think you and I are on different sides of the philosophical divide here. I believe you're saying that a lightweight OS wouldn't need the extra RAM. I'm saying that, as RAM is so cheap, it's a non-issue.

As an aside: I can remember paying over US$200 for 256MB!

That's not true. The only mainstream Linux distros that are no longer lightweight are distros like Ubuntu that attempt to be a Desktop OS.

Yes. But since, in my experience, those make up the majority of Linux installations, I think they're a good benchmark. I only know one person who doesn't run Ubuntu/Debian/Gentoo. and that's a friend who runs Arch because he likes compiling his own kernels. All my Linux experience has been with Debian and its offshoots. Additionally, anyone who wants to use Linux as a desktop OS will end up with a resource hungry system, as they will need X, Gnome/KDE, etc.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

We're not talking about different things, but I think we're seeing different needs and having different experiences. In my experience the only time I have seen OS X slow down is, as when you said, it gets low on RAM. However, I don't see this as a critical issue, as the steadily dropping prices of RAM mean adding more is trivial. I can get 16GB for under US$300. I can get 8GB for under US$150, and 8GB is enough to make the spinning beachball vanish forever for almost all tasks.

But again, throwing more computing resources at the problem does not cause it to scale better as you run more and more apps simultaneously and do stuff that consumes RAM, you're just providing greater headroom.

Yes. But since, in my experience, those make up the majority of Linux installations, I think they're a good benchmark. I only know one person who doesn't run Ubuntu/Debian/Gentoo. and that's a friend who runs Arch because he likes compiling his own kernels. All my Linux experience has been with Debian and its offshoots. Additionally, anyone who wants to use Linux as a desktop OS will end up with a resource hungry system, as they will need X, Gnome/KDE, etc.

They make up the majority of Linux installs of people who run Linux as a desktop OS.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

But again, throwing more computing resources at the problem does not cause it to scale better as you run more and more apps simultaneously and do stuff that consumes RAM, you're just providing greater headroom.

True, but I haven't run into a situation where the OS was limiting my ability to run more apps concurrently; I've actually found OS X to be most excellent in that regard. For me it's always too little RAM. Perhaps we use our machines differently.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

True, but I haven't run into a situation where the OS was limiting my ability to run more apps concurrently; I've actually found OS X to be most excellent in that regard. For me it's always too little RAM. Perhaps we use our machines differently.

The footprint of OS X is massive.

I don't know or care how this compares to Windows or Ubuntu w. desktop effects, but the jump from a headless OS such as a Linux/BSD or lightweight GUI OS such as Xbuntu that you can run on 256mb of RAM to one of these is huge. Each GUI process, window, whatever is going to require extra bits of RAM to support this extra stuff, even if this stuff is just idling. This is why I say that the RAM requirements do not scale in the same way. The iPhone 4 apparently has 512mb of RAM, I doubt you could even boot and access a website in OS X without your HD grinding away... Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but the iPhone has the compositing stuff and manages to work just fine in 512mb of RAM. What does this say about OS X?

To say that OS X is lightweight or that its resource consumption doesn't carry a performance penalty as more processes/apps are run in comparison to other operating systems is just not right, I don't think.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

The footprint of OS X is massive.

I don't know or care how this compares to Windows or Ubuntu w. desktop effects, but the jump from a headless OS such as a Linux/BSD or lightweight GUI OS such as Xbuntu that you can run on 256mb of RAM to one of these is huge. Each GUI process, window, whatever is going to require extra bits of RAM to support this extra stuff, even if this stuff is just idling. This is why I say that the RAM requirements do not scale in the same way. The iPhone 4 apparently has 512mb of RAM, I doubt you could even boot and access a website in OS X without your HD grinding away... Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little, but the iPhone has the compositing stuff and manages to work just fine in 512mb of RAM. What does this say about OS X?

I think this is the crux of our disagreement: I think this means nothing about OS X.

You almost can't buy a machine with 256MB of RAM these days. Even the most minimal System76 machine comes with 1GB. Poke around Dell's website and you won't find a machine with less than 1GB of RAM. The smallest I can find at Apple is 2GB. And, while, yes, you can boot Xbuntu with 256MB, you can't do much with it after you've booted it. Even starting a web browser will start you hitting swap. I've run Linux on older CPUs with minimal RAM, and it isn't pretty.

Now, I do understand your point on technical grounds. But, given the power of today's CPUs, and the amount of RAM now considered to be a minimal spec, I don't think it has any practical importance for a modern, desktop OS. Yes, OS X has a large footprint. So does Windows and a full up Ubuntu (although, to be fair, Linux still has the smallest footprint of the three). To turn the argument around: modern Macs have multiple cores, a good amount of fast memory and relatively pimped out GPUs. Why not make use of it all?

This is the price we pay for progress. I couldn't run 10.6 on my Pismo as it originally shipped (500 MHz/128MB RAM) but then my Pismo couldn't do many of the things I now take for granted.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

I think this is the crux of our disagreement: I think this means nothing about OS X.

You almost can't buy a machine with 256MB of RAM these days. Even the most minimal System76 machine comes with 1GB. Poke around Dell's website and you won't find a machine with less than 1GB of RAM. The smallest I can find at Apple is 2GB. And, while, yes, you can boot Xbuntu with 256MB, you can't do much with it after you've booted it. Even starting a web browser will start you hitting swap. I've run Linux on older CPUs with minimal RAM, and it isn't pretty.

Now, I do understand your point on technical grounds. But, given the power of today's CPUs, and the amount of RAM now considered to be a minimal spec, I don't think it has any practical importance for a modern, desktop OS. Yes, OS X has a large footprint. So does Windows and a full up Ubuntu (although, to be fair, Linux still has the smallest footprint of the three). To turn the argument around: modern Macs have multiple cores, a good amount of fast memory and relatively pimped out GPUs. Why not make use of it all?

This is the price we pay for progress. I couldn't run 10.6 on my Pismo as it originally shipped (500 MHz/128MB RAM) but then my Pismo couldn't do many of the things I now take for granted.

Making using of RAM and resources is different than requiring them though. Making use of them when available is smart, having caches and preloading stuff into memory can improve performance. I'm not saying that these resources shouldn't be used when available.

What I'm saying is that OS X would run faster and more efficiently if its footprint was less and more like iOS's. I'm not saying that its current consumption causes practical problems, but that as a matter of fact, OS X is a pig, and it would run faster if it were modified to be a more lightweight OS.

Perhaps Lion will be more iOS like in this sense.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Perhaps Lion will be more iOS like in this sense.

Perhaps. We will all find out in a few months.

[P]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Then it sounds like we agree: great sounding technology which, in Apple's case, didn't pan out like it was supposed to.

No. Quartz extreme is a great tech and it worked out very well. Quartz gl wasn't very high tech and it was a, skall we say, limited success.

[freudling]

I partly agree with the OP. Mac OS X is great, but...

Now I'm not going to post and say, "This is my experience, therefore it's everyone's!"

Based on my experience, my friends', and many of those at Mac User Group meetings, people are having issues with OS X. From this, and from user forums, I think a lot of people are. It's not just me.

The issues are unreliable performance and too much of the spinning beachball. I think there're problems under-the-hood that really need fixing. Snow Leopard seems like the buggiest version of all. Leopard was more stable. Tiger more stable still.

People talk about OS X being a "pig". What does that mean? Too much spinning beachball; sluggishness; high requirements for RAM (4 GB doesn't seem like enough); hot computers because of excessive processor/logic load...

So overall, there's lots to like about OS X, but over the years, it's just become bloated and buggy. This needs fixing, asap. Heck, it gobbles up RAM faster than a woman changes her mind. Check out the amount of wired RAM you have, and do it before an after an upgrade on a fresh restart with no applications running. It just gobbles it up. When multiple programs open, it seems to do a poor job of memory management and allocation.

And don't even get me started on SSDs and OS X. Check tech user forums and talk to people. OS X, currently, does a very poor job of handling SSDs. Over time, the drives slow considerably, memory disappears, etc. Have to do lots of restarts, permissions repairs... but it happens more frequently as the system ages. Fragmentation is a big problem for OS X and SSDs.

Anyway, I'm ranting now.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by freudling 

So overall, there's lots to like about OS X, but over the years, it's just become bloated and buggy. This needs fixing, asap. Heck, it gobbles up RAM faster than a woman changes her mind. Check out the amount of wired RAM you have, and do it before an after an upgrade on a fresh restart with no applications running. It just gobbles it up. When multiple programs open, it seems to do a poor job of memory management and allocation.

No offense freudling, but this is a fairly meaningless test. This just means that the memory wasn't freed because nothing else is claiming it. To make a test like this meaningful you'd have to prove that some processes were just ballooning in memory consumption and/or not freeing this up when no longer needed.

And don't even get me started on SSDs and OS X. Check tech user forums and talk to people. OS X, currently, does a very poor job of handling SSDs. Over time, the drives slow considerably, memory disappears, etc. Have to do lots of restarts, permissions repairs... but it happens more frequently as the system ages. Fragmentation is a big problem for OS X and SSDs.

You kind of lost me at "permission repairs" here... I also don't understand how this is an example of fragmentation, unless there are things about SSDs I don't understand.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

You kind of lost me at "permission repairs" here... I also don't understand how this is an example of fragmentation, unless there are things about SSDs I don't understand.

Lost you hey. Hmmm.

Fragmentation is a problem in OS X, especially with SSDs. What happens with SSDs is that the more fragmented the drive, the worse the performance and the more likely you will have memory disappear. That's because OS X does a poor job of managing the hard drive space and existing data with these drives. The biggest problem is that it won't free up space in relation to deleted blocks. We've seen consistently disappearing space 10 GB and more. It can also be erratic when it comes back.

A good read:

Mac SSD performance and TRIM in OSX | bit-tech.net

Lots of posts on Apple's forums like this about poor SSD performance/degradation over time:

Apple - Support - Discussions - Any software to improve the SSD ...

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by freudling 

So overall, there's lots to like about OS X, but over the years, it's just become bloated and buggy. This needs fixing, asap. Heck, it gobbles up RAM faster than a woman changes her mind. Check out the amount of wired RAM you have, and do it before an after an upgrade on a fresh restart with no applications running. It just gobbles it up. When multiple programs open, it seems to do a poor job of memory management and allocation.

This seems to be a misunderstanding of how OS X uses RAM. OS X caches frequently used data in RAM so as not to have to read it from disk when it's used again. This frequently used data is often related to applications you use a lot. Launch something RAM heavy like Photoshop the first time and see how long it takes. Quit, and launch it again: it will launch much more quickly.

Simply put, free RAM is wasted RAM.

I almost never see the spinning beachball on my machines, either at home or at work, so I don't think this is an issue with OS X, but an issue with the way people use the OS.

And don't even get me started on SSDs and OS X.

I won't, as, far as I'm concerned, SSDs are a giant rip off. But that's another thread.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

I almost never see the spinning beachball on my machines, either at home or at work, so I don't think this is an issue with OS X, but an issue with the way people use the OS.

Your logic.

A guy by the name of "Don Pickett" on an Internet forum claims that he almost never sees the spinning beachball on his machines at home and at work. Therefore, because of this, anybody experiencing spinning beachball issues is because it's those individuals' fault, not the operating system's.

Nice logic.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by freudling 

So overall, there's lots to like about OS X, but over the years, it's just become bloated and buggy. This needs fixing, asap. Heck, it gobbles up RAM faster than a woman changes her mind. Check out the amount of wired RAM you have, and do it before an after an upgrade on a fresh restart with no applications running. It just gobbles it up. When multiple programs open, it seems to do a poor job of memory management and allocation.

It is my understanding that if a system fully uses all available RAM, it is making efficient use of resources.

Unused RAM is wasted hardware that could be used to accelerate the system (by caching or whatever).

Of course, I am not a developer, so given your development background, you'll probably be able to give me a good explanation of your point. As it stands, it doesn't make sense to me.

That out of the way: My impression is that Snow Leopard does use somewhat more RAM than Leopard did (presumably by virtue of most everything running in 64-bit mode on my machine). But on the whole I find it faster and no buggier than Leopard - on my system (late 2006 MacBook C2D).

Originally Posted by freudling 

And don't even get me started on SSDs and OS X. Check tech user forums and talk to people. OS X, currently, does a very poor job of handling SSDs. Over time, the drives slow considerably, memory disappears, etc. Have to do lots of restarts, permissions repairs... but it happens more frequently as the system ages. Fragmentation is a big problem for OS X and SSDs.

Again, I am not a developer, but having waded my way through both of Anandtech's 30-page technical analyses on the subject of SSDs, I was under the impression that "fragmentation" is a completely meaningless term in relation to SSDs.

Might as well be discussing the quality of hay or riding whips when talking about hybrid cars.

Enlighten me if I'm wrong.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

It is my understanding that if a system fully uses all available RAM, it is making efficient use of resources.

Unused RAM is wasted hardware that could be used to accelerate the system (by caching or whatever).

Of course, I am not a developer, so given your development background, you'll probably be able to give me a good explanation of your point. As it stands, it doesn't make sense to me.

That out of the way: My impression is that Snow Leopard does use somewhat more RAM than Leopard did (presumably by virtue of most everything running in 64-bit mode on my machine). But on the whole I find it faster and no buggier than Leopard - on my system (late 2006 MacBook C2D).

I agree!

Snow Leopard has been perhaps my favorite or one of my favorite OS X releases to date. I understand the Server version is crud, but I hope that Lion continues what SL started. I don't really care about Grand Central Station or whatever that feature is called as much as I do making Lion more like iOS in performance and resource consumption.

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Lost you hey. Hmmm.

Fragmentation is a problem in OS X, especially with SSDs. What happens with SSDs is that the more fragmented the drive, the worse the performance and the more likely you will have memory disappear. That's because OS X does a poor job of managing the hard drive space and existing data with these drives. The biggest problem is that it won't free up space in relation to deleted blocks. We've seen consistently disappearing space 10 GB and more. It can also be erratic when it comes back.

A good read:

Mac SSD performance and TRIM in OSX | bit-tech.net

I really don't buy their argument about fragmentation:

Ironically for a device which can theoretically address any given cell at the same speed, SSDs can also become subject to fragmentation as a knock-on effect to dirtied NAND. Having numerous cells filled with junk data means the drive will need to perform more read-modify-write cycles when writing files, causing further performance degradation. A heavily fragmented drive will also be forced to spread files over many more cells, forcing the drive to address all those cells when then reading the data, so subsequently reducing total read speeds too.

Huh?

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I really don't buy their argument about fragmentation:

Huh?

That's great that you "don't really buy their argument about fragmentation". Go ahead and explain to us, why.

[Spheric Harlot]

I'll dig up the Anandtech article and get back to you.

In the meantime, please explain what besson, Don and I are not getting about RAM management that you find worthy of criticism.

Edit: Got it.
The problem is fragmentation at the page level, as data can only be deleted as blocks.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738/8

The TRIM advantage:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/2738/10


Now, what about the RAM?

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Your logic.

A guy by the name of "Don Pickett" on an Internet forum claims that he almost never sees the spinning beachball on his machines at home and at work. Therefore, because of this, anybody experiencing spinning beachball issues is because it's those individuals' fault, not the operating system's.

Nice logic.

Ah, logic. Yes.

We both run the same operating system on similar computers. I run some very RAM hungry applications, and often open multi-GB Photoshop files. I rarely see the spinning beachball in daily use, and only experience the spinning beachball (or that stupid cursor Adobe has uses in its place) when either 1) opening a multi-GB Photoshop file or 2) when I am clearly running out of RAM, usually due to having more RAM hungry applications open than my machine has sufficient memory for. I have been using both Macs and Photoshop since they first came out, and have experienced many problems with the various Apple operating systems.

However, my experience on 10.6, on Intel-powered hardware, and with extremely RAM hungry applications, shows me that I rarely encounter the spinning beachball unless my machine is forced to use swap for RAM.

Put another way, my machine has currently been up for 31 days. It has about 14.8 million page ins, and about 620,000 page outs. I'm currently using 260MB of swap space. That ratio tells me I have enough RAM in the thing for the way I currently use it.

Look at your uptime, you page ins and your page outs and tell me what you see. And, then, after that, and after you're done sounding like a teenager who's just been told s/he can't have the new toy s/he wants, maybe we can get to the bottom of your problem.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Spheric Harlot 

I'll dig up the Anandtech article and get back to you.

In the meantime, please explain what besson, Don and I are not getting about RAM management that you find worthy of criticism.

First, on the RAM. My point was in association with OS X being a bit piggish. What I've seen with numerous machines is that OS X will gobble up (allocate more RAM as in wired RAM) for the system without any applications open if you put more RAM in. The benefit of this is that I've seen performance improvements. The system is just faster with more RAM. e.g., 4 GB vs. 2 GB, or 8 GB vs. 4 GB. I don't think for any person that works on their computer daily that 4 GB of RAM is enough. That's my opinion based on my experience. I agree with OS X Daily:

8GB vs 4GB on the MacBook Pro
4GB of RAM is a good amount but 8GB is better. On a daily basis I frequently have the following apps open all at once: Photoshop, iTunes, Preview, Terminal, Transmit, Transmission, Text Wrangler, iChat, and here’s the real RAM hog: Safari, Chrome, Firefox, when you have three web browsers open at once with a ton of tabs open, your system will often slow to a crawl (web developers in particular can relate here). If you throw in a virtual machine, you’ve long hit the point of painful slowdowns. The reason for the slowdown I mentioned earlier, when Mac OS X is forced to start swapping data from physical memory to the 5400 RPM hard drive you feel the drag.

With 8GB I am doing the same work now that I was earlier today, but earlier today I was using 1.5GB of swap and now there is none being used, the difference is remarkable – no more beach balls and halts. The MacBook Pro simply performs better with 8GB of RAM.

RE: SSDs.

You may also find this article useful. We've researched the problem because we had major performance degradation with SSDs under OS X after about 6 months of use. I originally found some chatter over in the MB Air forums on Apple about slow downs with SSD as well, and spoke to a Genius at Apple who has stated that he's had some complaints about it.

A snippet:

Kicking seek time out of our equation, one can understand that for an SSD the main factor that causes performance drop is file system fragmentation. This is a problem at the level of file system and MFT table (NTFS), where files become fragmented such that one access request for one file turns out to be several or more access requests for pieces of file fragments that make up the file. This “I/O multiplication” effect found in a fragmented file system is particularly noticeable during write cycles. The reason is the erase-before-write characteristics of NAND flash: data can be written into a memory block only after existing data has been erased. Since the erase/write speed is slow compared to read, a write multiplication due to free space fragmentation can slow down I/O time severely.

This helps explain performance degradation with SSDs. There's also the problem of disappearing hard drive space. I looked into this as well and found that OS X doesn't always play nice with deleted sectors on an SSD. It won't free them up sometimes when they are deleted. You have to restart for the space to return, and that's when, for some of us, things can become erratic.

To Defrag or Not to Defrag–That Is the Question for SSD | RTC Magazine

From users on TRIM:

Apple - Support - Discussions - MacBookPro3.1 SSD and TRIM support? ...

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Ah, logic. Yes.

We both run the same operating system on similar computers. I run some very RAM hungry applications, and often open multi-GB Photoshop files. I rarely see the spinning beachball in daily use, and only experience the spinning beachball (or that stupid cursor Adobe has uses in its place) when either 1) opening a multi-GB Photoshop file or 2) when I am clearly running out of RAM, usually due to having more RAM hungry applications open than my machine has sufficient memory for. I have been using both Macs and Photoshop since they first came out, and have experienced many problems with the various Apple operating systems.

However, my experience on 10.6, on Intel-powered hardware, and with extremely RAM hungry applications, shows me that I rarely encounter the spinning beachball unless my machine is forced to use swap for RAM.

Put another way, my machine has currently been up for 31 days. It has about 14.8 million page ins, and about 620,000 page outs. I'm currently using 260MB of swap space. That ratio tells me I have enough RAM in the thing for the way I currently use it.

Look at your uptime, you page ins and your page outs and tell me what you see. And, then, after that, and after you're done sounding like a teenager who's just been told s/he can't have the new toy s/he wants, maybe we can get to the bottom of your problem.

As an additional thought to our earlier conversation, requiring less RAM can also increase machine longevity/usefulness by giving you greater headroom before you hit that point where you have to use swap.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Ah, logic. Yes.

We both run the same operating system on similar computers. I run some very RAM hungry applications, and often open multi-GB Photoshop files. I rarely see the spinning beachball in daily use, and only experience the spinning beachball (or that stupid cursor Adobe has uses in its place) when either 1) opening a multi-GB Photoshop file or 2) when I am clearly running out of RAM, usually due to having more RAM hungry applications open than my machine has sufficient memory for. I have been using both Macs and Photoshop since they first came out, and have experienced many problems with the various Apple operating systems.

However, my experience on 10.6, on Intel-powered hardware, and with extremely RAM hungry applications, shows me that I rarely encounter the spinning beachball unless my machine is forced to use swap for RAM.

Put another way, my machine has currently been up for 31 days. It has about 14.8 million page ins, and about 620,000 page outs. I'm currently using 260MB of swap space. That ratio tells me I have enough RAM in the thing for the way I currently use it.

Look at your uptime, you page ins and your page outs and tell me what you see. And, then, after that, and after you're done sounding like a teenager who's just been told s/he can't have the new toy s/he wants, maybe we can get to the bottom of your problem.

Don:

If you haven't clued in, there's multiple reasons why people experience performance problems under Snow Leopard outside of RAM issues.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

As an additional thought to our earlier conversation, requiring less RAM can also increase machine longevity/usefulness by giving you greater headroom before you hit that point where you have to use swap.

This is true. But, as I implied above, hardware obsolescence is the price we pay for progress. I was bitterly disappointed when Apple announced 10.6 would not support PPC, which means my beloved G5 would never get beyond 10.5.8. However, after getting new hardware I realize that the current Mac Pros can do things my G5 could never do.

I am sympathetic to your argument, having installed Linux on more than one older machine. But I've been around computers long enough to know that, if I get four or five years of every day use out of a machine then I've more then earned back my investment.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Don:

If you haven't clued in, there's multiple reasons why people experience performance problems under Snow Leopard outside of RAM issues.

Then, perhaps, rather than continuing to lead with childish insults you can lead with logic and list some of them.

edit: Still curious about your uptime, page ins and page outs. What are they?

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Then, perhaps, rather than continuing to lead with childish insults you can lead with logic and list some of them.

edit: Still curious about your uptime, page ins and page outs. What are they?

Um, ah... scroll up slightly and you'll see something about SSD performance. It's been a headache for several machines under my employ and I've determined it's because OS X has poor support for them. OS X, however, isn't alone here. Windows users have had issues too. However, Windows seems to be supporting them better now, whereas OS X has lagged. Not going to repeat what's been discussed, read the posts/links.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Um, ah... scroll up slightly and you'll see something about SSD performance. It's been a headache for several machines under my employ and I've determined it's because OS X has poor support for them. OS X, however, isn't alone here. Windows users have had issues too. However, Windows seems to be supporting them better now, whereas OS X has lagged. Not going to repeat what's been discussed, read the posts/links.

That's one. You said "multiple". What are some others?

[Spheric Harlot]

Freudling made an assertion about RAM hes failed to back up with own data.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

This is true. But, as I implied above, hardware obsolescence is the price we pay for progress. I was bitterly disappointed when Apple announced 10.6 would not support PPC, which means my beloved G5 would never get beyond 10.5.8. However, after getting new hardware I realize that the current Mac Pros can do things my G5 could never do.

I am sympathetic to your argument, having installed Linux on more than one older machine. But I've been around computers long enough to know that, if I get four or five years of every day use out of a machine then I've more then earned back my investment.

I'm sympathetic to yours too

In fact, I'd say that what you have been saying is far more practical than what I have been saying. In actual reality and in the world of business, it doesn't make practical sense for a software company to optimize like Woz talks about being forced to when back in the day computing resources were a very precious commodity. This is time that could be spent building other things.

However, that being said, just for the sake of absolute technical accuracy, OS X is indeed a pig. If there was ever any doubt about this, I think iOS proves this, and this pigness does carry a performance penalty. We as customers would benefit from a general push towards resource thriftiness. That was all my point was.

I agree that this is rather idealistic and doesn't have a place in the world of selling software though, at least not these days. However, perhaps we are seeing a computing renaissance with these mobile devices. I'm certain that Chrome OS/Android is pretty darn optimized too. Having these restraints are a good thing, it keeps programmers honest!

[besson3c]

It would be really interesting to see iOS running on a Mac Pro (or even better, a custom built PC rig)... That thing would haul ass!

[imitchellg5]

Uh, why? iOS hauls ass on an iPad, why would you put it on a machine that the OS can't utilise?

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

It would be really interesting to see iOS running on a Mac Pro (or even better, a custom built PC rig)... That thing would haul ass!

Actually, probably not. You'd have to give up anything more than basic multitasking. You'd have very restricted memory management (no local or systemwide cache), no multiple user accounts, very limited graphics support with no modern GPU support, etc. I think it would actually drive you a little crazy.

[besson3c]

It would, I was just thinking about sheer singletasking performance on top of the line hardware - whatever that is

[Don Pickett]

If you're interested in small footprints, try Damn Small Linux. x86 only, I'm afraid.

[Laminar]

besson: Have you tried using Linux before? If not, I would like to introduce it to you.

[besson3c]

I like oatmeal

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

That's one. You said "multiple". What are some others?

Some things off the top of my head:

-OS X and MobileMe: abysmal performance
-Time Machine: Unreliable and slow
-Increased RAM requirements
-Compared to Leopard, mixed bag of performance improvements: some things faster, others slower
-64-bit support and performance, or lack thereof. Lots of marketing, not a lot behind it: system boots default in 32-bit mode. Sets OS X up for future, which is good, but marketing is misleading.

I like Snow Leopard - there are good things and speed ups here and there - but it has turned out to be a bit of a mixed bag after using it on multiple machines over the past few years.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by freudling 

-Time Machine: Unreliable and slow

?? Does it have a pattern of failure? It's saved both my and my sister's butts.

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

?? Does it have a pattern of failure? It's saved both my and my sister's butts.

Pattern of failure? I'm assuming you mean that files come back when you enter the interface? The issue has mostly been around slow/unreliable back ups.

It's well-documented and should be common knowledge to anyone using a Mac that Time Machine has struggled in terms of performance since it first appeared some years ago. It's gotten somewhat better over the years but that's not saying too much. It started out like a trainwreck.

Apple is so good at so much yet certain things that could be really good and incredibly useful leave me scratching my head, like TM or MobileMe.

With MobileMe, I ended up writing a script that automatically backs up a set of folders to my iDisk via Transmit FTP. It's way faster and much more reliable.

[imitchellg5]

Time Machine is fairly slow to back up via my Time Capsule for my MacBook Pro, but my iMac's initial 400 Gb backup over FW800 only took 30 minutes. Doesn't seem to shabby.

However, I've had nothing but issues with MobileMe since day 1.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Pattern of failure? I'm assuming you mean that files come back when you enter the interface? The issue has mostly been around slow/unreliable back ups.

It's well-documented and should be common knowledge to anyone using a Mac that Time Machine has struggled in terms of performance since it first appeared some years ago. It's gotten somewhat better over the years but that's not saying too much. It started out like a trainwreck.

You say that it's obvious, but you don't say why. If a user hasn't had problems, how would he/she be aware of these problems?

[freudling]

Originally Posted by Laminar 

You say that it's obvious, but you don't say why. If a user hasn't had problems, how would he/she be aware of these problems?

"Obvious"? "Why?" I said it's well-documented and well-known. I have a hard time believing that someone like you who is part of the Mac community hasn't known about the problems Apple has had with Time Machine over the years. "Well-documented"..., what more can I say.

But hey, even Apple has a document addressing it:

Apple's own note about slow performance under Snow Leopard

Mac OS X 10.6 Help: If Time Machine is slow

Time Machine has been plagued by poor performance since it launched years ago.

One example of many threads on the issue:

Time Machine in Snow Leopard SLOW!!! - MacRumors Forums

Lots of articles/posts about problems with it, which is due to spikes in processor load, network problems, and other things. There's been so many reported issues with it again I find it hard to believe you don't know about it.

Leopard (Mac OS X 10.5): Time Machine slowness, fix | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

Quick tip: Faster Time Machine backups | MacFixIt - CNET Reviews

Time Machine - Troubleshooting

Gizmodo, the Gadget Guide

Apple fixes 70 issues with Mac OS X 10.5.3 update | Mac OS X | Macworld

Too many to list them all...

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by freudling 

Some things off the top of my head:

-OS X and MobileMe: abysmal performance

Don't use it, so no comment.

-Time Machine: Unreliable and slow

Have used it without major problems on three different machines, two different processor families and two different versions of OS X. The problem is probably specific to your use of it.

edit: Looks like you're not having problems with Time Machine. Looks like your finding lots of threads with people having trouble and posting this. The plural of anecdote is not data.

-Increased RAM requirements

This is something which makes me wonder what kind of "developer" you are. The move from 32- to 64-bit requires more RAM, as did the move from 16- to 32- bit, as did the move from 8- to 16-bit, and on and on. You don't get something for free.

-Compared to Leopard, mixed bag of performance improvements: some things faster, others slower

Once again, please be specific. I haven't found anything which is slower.

-64-bit support and performance, or lack thereof. Lots of marketing, not a lot behind it: system boots default in 32-bit mode. Sets OS X up for future, which is good, but marketing is misleading.

First, once again, I wonder what kind of "developer" you are. The issues you describe occur in all 64-bit OSes, and the issue isn't the OS but the state of drivers and plugins, many of which (<cough>TWAIN</cough>) are still 32-bit. If you boot the 64-bit kernel, 32-bit drivers and plug ins won't work, or will work poorly. Compared to 64-bit versions of Linux and Windows, OS X is remarkably free from problems in this area.

Second, saying that marketing is misleading is like saying water is wet, and is not a technical issue with the OS.

[besson3c]

Time Machine is slow, but it isn't Time Machine's fault, it's HFS+'s fault, both for being a poor performer as well as not providing file system snapshot capability.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Time Machine is slow, but it isn't Time Machine's fault, it's HFS+'s fault, both for being a poor performer as well as not providing file system snapshot capability.

Do you really find Time Machine slow? My hourly backups are usually ~100MB, and are over in 30 seconds.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by freudling 

"Obvious"? "Why?" I said it's well-documented and well-known. I have a hard time believing that someone like you who is part of the Mac community hasn't known about the problems Apple has had with Time Machine over the years. "Well-documented"..., what more can I say.

You said nothing about whether or not I should know. You said:

It's well-documented and should be common knowledge to anyone using a Mac...

My question stands.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Don Pickett 

Do you really find Time Machine slow? My hourly backups are usually ~100MB, and are over in 30 seconds.

I don't use it myself, but I've sat there and watched it take several minutes for a family member that uses it.

[Don Pickett]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I don't use it myself, but I've sat there and watched it take several minutes for a family member that uses it.

The only time I've seen it take several minutes is when mds has to index a lot of small files. However, in my experience, even when it takes a longish time, it works in the background and I don't notice any slowdown. Obviously, depending on your machine, YMMV.

[CharlesS]

It often takes around 5 minutes on my machine if you include all the pre- and post-backup thinning, but I'm not complaining about it since it sometimes used to take upwards of an hour on my old iMac G5, and because it doesn't seem to slow my system down noticeably the way it used to on the old iMac. And because I really have a lot of files, which makes it take a long time to delete them all. Really, I think that Time Machine's performance is about as good as it could be without a better file system.

As for the SSD thing, the issue you're seeing there is caused by the fact that SSDs require an extra step to clear a block before it can be written to again, not file system fragmentation. The solution to that is TRIM, not a defrag utility (which, really, is something you never want to do on an SSD, since it will generate a lot of writes and probably use up any blocks that might still be free on the drive). File system fragmentation is not really an issue with SSDs, but erase/rewrite cycles are. Hopefully we'll get TRIM support in Lion at least.

[Laminar]

I'm also curious what the benchmark for incremental backup solutions is. To what is Time Machine being compared, and how do we know that it's "slow?"

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally Posted by CharlesS 

As for the SSD thing, the issue you're seeing there is caused by the fact that SSDs require an extra step to clear a block before it can be written to again, not file system fragmentation. The solution to that is TRIM, not a defrag utility (which, really, is something you never want to do on an SSD, since it will generate a lot of writes and probably use up any blocks that might still be free on the drive). File system fragmentation is not really an issue with SSDs, but erase/rewrite cycles are. Hopefully we'll get TRIM support in Lion at least.

It's not file system fragmentation, but it's still fragmentation - that's what threw me.

As per the first anandtech link I posted, the issue is that blocks are subdivided into pages, which can be written to individually, while data can only be erased (and thus overwritten) for an entire block.

It's not file system fragmentation, but recyclable space (unassigned pages that still contain previous data) becomes fragmented and kills performance over time. Fixing this requires TRIM support, yes.

freudling's post and the article he linked to are the first I've ever seen this phenomenon referred to as "fragmentation", though - not sure if the term is actually commonly used here. Anandtech does not.